...to
a Trump presidency, How a Republican White
House could undermine the accord, MAY
29, 2016, by Barney Jopson in
Washington and Pilita Clark in London, Financial Times
Donald Trump is sowing doubt over the Paris climate change pact
as his hostility towards the deal and the growing swagger of his campaign focus
attention on how he could undermine it as president.
The Republican candidate last week vowed to “cancel” the painstakingly
negotiated agreement, a threat experts said was unrealistic. But his comments put a
spotlight on its slow ratification and weak spots in President Barack Obama’s
climate legacy.
While Mr. Trump could not single-handedly scrap the agreement —
which Washington and Beijing had rallied more than 190 countries to join — he
could withdraw the US, the second largest greenhouse gas emitter after China,
or block the action needed to cut emissions to the levels promised by Mr Obama.
Trump puts fossil fuels at US energy core
Republican
candidate has vowed to unleash the full power of fossil fuels in US energy
policy
The Paris accord, hailed as a turning point in more than 20
years of effort to combat climate change, requires countries to set out plans
to help keep global warming “well below 2C” from pre-industrial times. The
Obama administration has vowed to cut US greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 per
cent from 2005 levels by 2025.
But if Mr. Trump used the presidency to cast doubt on the need
for climate action, he could weaken the resolve of other leaders skeptical
about the deal.
Attacks on the Paris agreement could occur at three different
levels under a Trump presidency.
Withdrawal from the pact
No single country can “cancel” the deal because it would require
each of the nearly 200 nations that negotiated it to agree to abandon it. Once
the agreement is in force it is also impossible for a country to withdraw
overnight.
“Even if Donald Trump becomes president he cannot pull the US out of the Paris accord
quickly because there is a four-year withdrawal period written into the
agreement,” said Michael Jacobs, a UN climate negotiations expert at the
Institute for Public Policy Research, a UK think-tank.
“That’s not a coincidence,” he added, noting the timing matched
the length of a US presidential term.
However, the agreement is not yet in force and it is not likely
to be by the time a new president is sworn in next January — a possibility that
could leave Mr. Trump with an easier get-out if he wins.
The Paris accord cannot take effect until it is formally
ratified or joined by 55 countries accounting for 55 per cent of global
emissions. So far, only 17 countries representing 0.04 per cent of emissions
have ratified it.
China and the US have said they plan to join this year but they
account for only about 40 per cent of emissions. Even under the most optimistic
scenarios, the agreement may not start until 2018.
The US courts
The fate of US climate policies is not solely in the hands of
the president. The centerpiece of Mr Obama’s Paris pledges — an initiative to
cut carbon emissions from the
power sector — is hanging in the
balance as its legality is weighed by the courts.
Because Mr. Obama was unable to curb emissions via legislation
in Congress, he has resorted to using regulations, which are vulnerable to
lawsuits from states and energy companies that dislike them.
In February a District of Columbia appeals court dealt the
president a blow by ruling that the administration could no longer enforce
compliance deadlines for the power plant initiative.
The appeals court judges will hear oral arguments over the
so-called Clean Power Plan on September 27.
But the case’s significance is likely to push it to the Supreme
Court, which means a final ruling on the plan will not come until the next
president is in office. He or she could also end up filling the top court’s
current vacant seat.
If Mr. Trump were in charge he could intervene by asking the
court for a “voluntary remand”, sending it back to regulators who he could tell
to render it toothless, said a veteran Washington environmental lawyer.
More radically, the president could get it thrown out by telling
judges the government had done a 180-degree turn and now agreed with its
opponents. “That rarely happens even with a change of administration, but it’s
not unprecedented,” said the lawyer.
Executive inaction
Even if the courts upheld Mr. Obama’s plan to cut emissions from
power plants, a President Trump could choose to disrupt it.
With a co-operative Congress he could cut funding for the
Environmental Protection Agency, the regulator in charge, or promote
legislation to slow the initiative’s implementation.
Or “he could signal to the states that their plans for meeting
the Clean Power Plan goals would not be reviewed rigorously”, said Rhea Suh,
president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
The power plant initiative is vital because it tackles the US’s
biggest single source of greenhouse gases, accounting for 40 per cent of the
total. But Mr. Trump could also delay moves to stop methane leaks, curb vehicle
emissions and promote energy efficiency.
“Some of those things would be challenged in court, but … even
if they were in some legal limbo he would effectively really halt our
progress,” said Ms. Suh. “The actual slowing down of things may in fact be a
reversal in itself.”
Christiana Figueres, the UN’s top climate
official, said the next president would need to examine the US’s economic
interests and argued that shifting to a low-carbon system made sense for the
economy and society.
“The world is moving in that direction and if the US wants to
remain competitive it needs to focus its vast technical capacities to stay
current, if not ahead of the curve,” she said.
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Comments
If Trump
puts a “stop-hold” on payments to the UN, it doesn’t matter if other countries want
to continue to support this nonsense; it’s up to them. Other countries obviously will follow Trump’s
lead and the only countries left would be all the undeveloped third-world
countries who want to receive the carbon taxes and the few really stupid countries
who want to pay them. “Sticks and
stones…..”
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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