U.S. departure from Paris Agreement cannot stop low-carbon trend

By Li Ruixin
0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China Today, July 18, 2017
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On June 1, 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump announced at the Rose Garden that the U.S. would be "getting out" of the Paris Agreement. The decision was unanimously denounced. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it "a major disappointment for global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote international security."

U.S. President Trump leaves the podium after announcing the U.S.'s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, leaving the entire world astounded. [File photo]



Governors of California, New York and Washington showed their disappointment at the withdrawal by founding the U.S. Climate Alliance, vowing to support the Paris Agreement. Republican governors of Massachusetts and Vermont joined the coalition, and the number of supporters keeps growing.

The dismayed business sector also took immediate action. Michael Bloomberg, former New York Mayor and founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, pledged up to US $15 million to the United Nations, the same amount the UN stands to lose from the United States' withdrawal from the climate pact. Business giants such as Facebook, GE, Microsoft, and Google declared a race towards 100 percent renewable energy usage in the business world.

Elsewhere, France, Germany, and Italy issued a joint statement expressing their disappointment and reaffirming their pledge to the Paris Agreement. French President Macron slammed Trump's decision in a speech delivered in English, calling on "all scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, responsible citizens who were disappointed by the decision of U.S. President" to come and work with France. On climate there is no plan B because there is no planet B, Macron said. Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau also expressed "disappointment" and vowed to fight against climate change and promote clean-growth economy.

An Essential Agreement

The uproar resulting from Trump's decision is mostly due to the status of the Paris Agreement. As the first global accord reached on climate issues, it symbolizes an arduous, protracted but upward process, saving multilateral negotiations from a dead-end, rebuilding political mutual trust, and redesigning the mechanism of global climate governance. It embodies persistent efforts made by all 195 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It also marks a new high in climate negotiation since the Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009, and a return to the top agenda of international politics.

Protestors gather outside of the White House, calling for American government to meet its commitment to the climate issue. [File photo]



The most significant contribution of the Paris Agreement is to set a clear-cut target – limit temperature rise to 2 degrees centigrade above the pre-industrial level by 2100, and work towards limiting the increase to 1.5 degrees. An incarnation of consensus and resolution of all parties, the target sends an important message: continued low-carbon growth of the global economy.

The agreement further reflects the bottom-up model that was gradually established after the Durban Climate Conference in 2011. With this model, each country proposes its own national climate action plan, called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), and works towards it. The UNFCCC will review the collective progress every five years to facilitate the necessary measures, so closing the gap to the target of capping surface temperature rise to 1.5 degrees centigrade.

In 2015 the U.S. submitted its INDC to the UNFCCC secretariat, promising to cut emissions by 26 percent to ideally 28 percent of the 2005 level by 2025. As the world's second emitter, the U.S., in breaking its promise, was bound to disrupt political mutual trust and dampen the ambitions of the countries that have pulled together through so many years.

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