America Goes Small

On December 12, 2015, the Paris Accord was adopted at the 21st session of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

At the time, the agreement was considered a world-wide political and diplomatic breakthrough. Phoenix-like, it rose from the ashes of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, whose mandated reductions in carbon emissions resulted in the rejection of that Protocol by the second Bush Administration in 2001, and then resurrected the possibility of world-wide consensus on both the issue climate change and a modest framework to (possibly) reduce it.

The operative words here are "modest" and "possibly."

The Accord was not binding in any legal sense. It did not require any nation to meet any specific reduction in carbon emissions. And the Accord's goal of limiting global warming to less than 1.5C compared to pre-industrial era levels was just that -- a goal.

But, as commentators pointed out at the time, that the Accord was ultimately aspirational did not make it meaningless.

The hope was that nations, in agreeing to limit their specific individual emissions so as to meet their respective portions of the overall needed reduction, would create a universe in which the cost of non-compliance, measured both economically and morally, would itself engender adherence.

For a number of reasons, moreover, the hope was entirely rational.

First, the scientific consensus on global warming as an established fact was itself irrefutable. Climate deniers had been reduced to the category of cranks and charlatans, the 21st century's version of a flat earth society that continued to deny the truths of Copernicus.

Second, the costs of global warming were being calculated and published. The now famous Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change reported in 2006 that unabated global warming would cause 5-20% annual reductions in global gross domestic product for the rest of the century, and a 2015 study from Tufts University projected a loss to America alone in the range of 1-3%, along with a global loss of 10%.

Third, the benefits themselves were large, both in terms of the improved health that would come from less pollution and in terms of the economic growth from green technologies and clean energy.

Finally, the Accord mandated transparency. Nations could choose their individual (and different) paths to carbon reduction, allowing, for example, China to pursue clean coal while Norway embraced hydroelectric and the United States developed plains states wind farms. But they all had to announce their results, and those that failed would presumably suffer the shame of a global citizenry intent on insuring that our world not be destroyed in a sea of melting ice.

Yesterday, Donald Trump ended America's participation in the Paris Accord.

We now join Syria and Nicaragua as the only two countries that are not a part of the deal.

The reaction from around the world was swift and universally negative. The European Union issued a statement deriding Trump's decision as "a sad day for the global community." The UN Secretary-General called it "a major disappointment." Leaders from Japan, China, Russia and Europe reiterated their own nation's commitment to the agreement, with France's President Macron, speaking in English, noting -- and not too subtly -- that the Accord was designed to "make the planet great again."

Trump, however, is not interested in the planet.

His speech announcing the departure was his usual bromide of exaggerated claims and rhetorical nonsense. He trotted out statistics from National Economic Research Associates (NERA) that more than 2 million American jobs would be lost on account of the Accord, with compliance being especially damaging in heavy manufacturing sectors (including iron, steel and coal). He claimed the Accord had no teeth and would effectively result in American compliance while India and China failed to live up to their commitments.

The NERA study, however, had already been debunked. It overstates job loss and doesn't remotely account for expected gains in the clean energy sector. For that reason, it had been roundly dismissed by the business community, large sectors of which are committed to the Accord. In fact, over thirty companies -- including notables like GE, Dow Chemical, Citigroup and B of A -- re-stated their commitments yesterday. As one commentator noted, "This is not a tree hugger group."

The cheating claim is particularly silly. On the one hand, it was the United States, in the presence of the Obama Administration reacting to pressure from Republicans , which refused to allow the Accord to mandate compliance or impose penalties if nations did not meet their obligations. The Chinese actually wanted a legally binding deal and didn't get one. For Trump to now claim that others will cheat while we blindly adhere ignores this history. On the other, the whole point of the Accord was to embrace a new form of diplomacy where decentralized compliance and implementation was enforced with transparency and moral suasion.

It wasn't perfect.

But it wasn't a "nothin' burger" either.

Nor was there an alternative.

Trump thinks he can negotiate a new deal but the evidence for that is thin to non-existent. In his comments yesterday, France's Macron made clear that "there is no Plan B." And the other signatories have decided to go on without us, willing to lead as we fall behind, but hoping (with some basis in reality) that states, localities and businesses here in the US take up the baton that Trump has just thrown away.

At the end of his speech, Trump asked, "At what point does America get demeaned. At what point do they start laughing at us. We want fair treatment . . . for our taxpayers." He then finished with a flourish, saying "I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris."

I don't know when the rest of the world started laughing. With Trump, there has been no shortage of opportunities. But Hillary supported the Paris Accord and Pittsburgh voted overwhelmingly for her last November.

So when he ended there . . .

That's when I started.