Is the US Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement a First Salvo against the Special and Differential Treatment?

In its speech relating to the decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, President Trump emphasized that “I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States...the world’s leader in environmental protection, while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters”.

While the latter affirmation is exaggerated, there is no need to deny that the Paris Climate Agreement incorporates explicitly the principle of differential treatment. Article 2.2 stipulates to that effect that:

This Agreement will be implemented to reflect equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.

According to Article 4.4, this principle implies that:

Developed country Parties should continue taking the lead by undertaking economy-wide absolute emission reduction targets. Developing country Parties should continue enhancing their mitigation efforts, and are encouraged to move over time towards economy-wide emission reduction or limitation targets in the light of different national circumstances

The president has therefore a point that the United States, and other developed countries, are not held to the same standards as developing countries. The U.S., for instance, set a target of reducing its emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent below its 2005 level by 2025. That is an absolute reduction. China, meanwhile, set a target that is a ratio of gross domestic product, which means its total emissions will continue to increase as the country develops. China says it will lower its emissions per unit of gross domestic product within the range of 60 percent to 65 percent below the 2005 level by 2030. And the country set a goal of peaking its carbon dioxide emissions around 2030, with “best efforts to peak early.”

India, too, has pledged an emissions reduction per unit of GDP, not an absolute reduction. Its target is for emissions per unit of GDP to be within the range of 33 percent to 35 percent below the 2005 level in 2030.

Since China’s and India’s targets allow emissions to increase until 2030, while the U.S. has set absolute reduction targets, one may be tempted to claim that the Paris Climate Agreement imposes “no meaningful obligations” on these two countries. This claim is exaggerated since these countries have to take steps to meet their 2030 goals.

Is the US withdrawal of the Paris Climate Agreement a first salvo against the special and differential treatment in international trade law? In an article aptly named “SPECIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL TREATMENT AND DEVELOPMENT ISSUES IN THE MULTILATERAL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS: THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET”, Manuela Tortora already warned in 2003 that:

In spite of...obvious justifications, the concept of S&D and the instruments of international cooperation that are devised to implement it are increasingly under attack, in particular by the arguments that leveling the playing field provides automatic benefits to all the countries, whatever their economic and social conditions, and that the quicker you remove all sort of distortions, the sooner you achieve development.