 had always been fickle during climate negotiations. The U.S.’s unwillingness, in particular, to cap its pollution had repeatedly derailed past efforts. Now, negotiators were arriving in Paris with a U.S.-China promise already on the table.
What’s more, Obama showed a desire to make his promise of U.S. emission cuts a reality. His administration moved to clean up electricity generation through the Clean Power Plan, reduce vehicle emissions, and cap methane leaks from natural gas pipelines. Meanwhile, China seemed to be cleaning up its own act.
With that foundation, nearly 200 countries convened at the end of 2015 to hammer out a climate agreement, and by mid-December, they had it. The Paris Agreement they produced was non-binding — that was crucial for the U.S., as a binding agreement would likely need sign-off from the Republican-controlled Congress. It called on countries to voluntarily offer up a plan for cutting emissions. As time went on, countries would revise those plans to make them more ambitious.
That Paris agreement went into effect on November 4, 2016.
Four days later, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.
It was at that point that the wave of global enthusiasm for addressing climate change crested, and began to retreat.
Trump announced his intention to pull out of the Paris Agreement, and, aided by EPA administrators and Secretaries of the Interior who shared his vision, started to dismantle Obama’s climate legacy. (Their job was made considerably easier by the fact that much of what Obama did was through executive branch rulemaking. It was a strategy of necessity: During Obama’s second term, Republicans controlled the House, and, during the last two years, the Senate.)
As the U.S. has stepped away from leading the climate charge, other countries have attempted to pick up the mantle. China and the EU have repeatedly sought to demonstrate their ongoing commitment to the Paris agreement. China is, reportedly, planning to unveil new, more ambitious climate targets at the UN General Assembly this week. But the country’s case for climate leadership is complicated by its global ambitions: Even as it cleans up its act at home, it continues to invest in dirty-energy projects abroad as it expands its reach in the developing world.
Meanwhile, the rising tide of right-wing populism worldwide and the skepticism of institutions that comes with it is battering the Paris Agreement. Following in Trump’s footsteps, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro has threatened to pull his country out of it.
But while climate action appears stuck in place, climate change itself continues to move forward: the most salient, recent example is the Bahamas, which was battered for days by Hurricane Dorian, which paused above it.
“I’ve never seen such dramatic devastation anywhere else in the world,” Guterres said, visiting Abaco Island in the Bahamas Saturday. “They say this is a hurricane category five. I believe is is a hurricane category ‘hell.'”
While action on climate change is a global project, negotiators worldwide will be closely watching the U.S. election.
Though Trump has touted the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, we’re actually still in it — though we’re making no effort to comply. The U.S. sends negotiators to climate talks, and they weigh in with their perspective on issues. (Journalist Bob Berwyn calls it a “schizophrenic” approach, with the State Department sending a delegation of career diplomats, the White House sending a separate delegation to talk up fossil fuels, and a coalition of blue and purple cities and states sending a third delegation under the banner “We Are Still In.”)
In fact, the U.S. will remain in the agreement until November 2020. That’s because the agreement stipulates that, after entering it, no country can leave for three years. After a country announces its intention to leave, there’s an additional one-year waiting period before it can do so. That means that, because the agreement went into effect on November 4, 2016, the U.S. can’t leave until November 4, 2020.
That’s the day after the 20