Trump\'s presidency: The fate of the Paris Agreement

Shaila Mahmud | Published: November 14, 2016 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

The second week of November has been a a roller-coaster ride for global climate change action. The month kicked off on a high note with Paris Agreement coming into force on November 04, just two days prior to the 22nd session of the Conference of Parties (COP) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Marrakesh, Morocco. The floor was set for 'enhanced pre-2020 action' to build a well-founded strategy for post-2020 climate actions to pursue efforts to limit global temperature rise beyond 1.5°C.
 The high expectation of climate negotiators and experts met with a 'tremor' when the world's second biggest greenhouse gas emitter the U.S. voted on November 08 a 'climate change denier' as their president for the next four years.
According to the Guardian, International environmental groups at UN Negotiations in Morocco have cited Trump's presidency as an indication of a 'catastrophe', given Trump's campaign pledges to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement.
A CBC News reports that under President Barack Obama climate change has been given much precedence, followed by playing a major role in 'crafting' the Paris Agreement. This September, the U.S. fast-track ratification of the Paris Agreement has been welcomed by the world climate envoys. Nevertheless, the victory of Donald Trump has shaken the hope built by President Obama in last one year to make Paris deal a success.
The anxiety that's brewing in COP 22 and civil society groups across the world is real. NBC's May issue records  that during a campaign rally Trump said, "We're going to cancel the Paris climate agreement - unbelievable - and stop all payments of the United States tax dollars to U.N. global warming programmes."  A recent news post from Marrakesh quotes Mohamed Adow, a climate policy expert at Christian Aid, as saying, "There is no question the U.S. election presents real political risks to the global climate efforts."
As the Paris Agreement is called an 'agreement' and not a 'treaty' is one of the reasons why Trump presidency cannot possibly just 'cancel' the deal right after taking position in the White House next January. Josh Busby, an Associate Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin, in his article titled  "The Paris Agreement: When is a treaty not a treaty?" points out that the Paris Agreement is not a treaty under Article II of U.S. constitution which allowed the Obama Administration to submit a presidential statement or executive order while signing the agreement rather than going through the Senate for advice and consent to ratify the Paris Agreement as required for treaties falling under Article II of the US constitution. Considering the article, it is argued that in order to cancel the agreement Trump has to 'actively repudiate' Obama's signature.
According to Article 28 of the agreement, an official withdrawal from Paris Agreement cannot be made for three years as soon as it goes into effect and once the 'withdrawal notification' is submitted to the depositary (the Secretary General of the UN) the cancellation takes one more year to be effective. Daniel Bodansky, a scholar of international environmental law at Arizona State University and a former attorney at the US State Department, said that if the agreement goes into force under Obama presidency, "then the next president could not withdraw until sometime in 2019, and the withdrawal would not be effective until sometime in 2020."
In case, the Republican president wants to disavow the agreement earlier, he has to withdraw U.S. from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), adopted in 1992 as mentioned under Paragraph 3 of Article 28. The cancellation will then be active in a year at some time in 2018. Now, what happens if Trump persists in his election slogans and takes the belligerent route to cut ties with the Paris Agreement?
It may be recalled that the US signed the Kyoto Protocol on global warming in 1998 when Bill Clinton was President. George Bush,   right after becoming president in 2001, withdrew US signature on the accord.
But as a Huffington Post article states there is a 'major difference' between the Paris Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol. While Paris Agreement is a concerted effort to cut emissions with support from developed nations for the least developed and developing nations, the Kyoto Protocol asked for the developed countries to reduce emissions from greenhouse gases. Moreover, the Kyoto Protocol had an exemption on 100 polluting countries comprising India and China, the two big greenhouse gas emitters. The silver lining to the ongoing tension regarding the Paris Agreement is that all the giant emitters including China, India and the European Union are part of this movement towards a renewable world.
Abandoning the Paris Agreement would be risky for Trump in view of international trade between the U.S. and rest of the world. This may jeopardise US trade relationship with its major trade partners, the European Union, China, India, Canada, Germany and others, who are actively supporting the global goal of reducing temperature rise through more investment in renewable energy.
If by any chance the Trump chooses to discard the Paris Agreement, this is unlikely to blow off the universal agreement because of one man's stand against a global need. To quote Mohamed Adow, Christian Aid's international climate lead spokesman: "The global transition to a zero-carbon economy will not be held up by one man. The rest of the world will not risk a global climate catastrophe because of one man's opposition."
The writer works in the field of
climate change and development.
shaila.mahmud91@gmail.com