Why the US Failed to Prevent the Climate Challenge from Turning into the Climate Crisis
Why the US Failed to Prevent the Climate Challenge from Turning into the Climate Crisis
Steve Charnovitz @SteveCharnovitz
31 October 2021
Human-induced climate change poses a threat to planetary life and health. When the United Nations (UN) spearheaded the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, the world community cheered the inauguration of a climate regime and was optimistic that climate change would be controlled through international cooperation and global law.
With the launch today of UNFCCC COP26 negotiations in Glasgow, optimism has dimmed. Recently, the UN reported that “Climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying, and some trends are now irreversible.”
How is it possible that 29 years after the Rio Conference, the value-added from official intergovernmental climate cooperation has been so inadequate? Why did politicians squander the years and decades during which appropriate economic instruments, especially a carbon tax, could have jumpstarted decarbonization much earlier? How could successive American Presidents and Congresses blundered through so much policy failure? How much worse off would the Planet have been if the global business and financial communities had not voluntarily enlisted themselves into transforming the market?
As my personal intellectual contribution to COP 26 meetings in Glasgow, I posted a 20-part series on Twitter noting the high and low points in the much-watched US government role to press for global solutions to climate change.
As my posts make clear, the biggest missed opportunities were the defective non-reciprocal design of both the Kyoto Accord (1997) and the Paris Agreement (2015). The US was a major player in both negotiations. For both Kyoto and Paris, the White House made the same mistake of choosing a pathway of zealous partisan end runs around Congress. Of the two treaties, Paris is the more lamentable because in the 18 years since Kyoto, the climate problem had slowly worsened. Nevertheless, even though the Paris Agreement was hollow, politicians adopted the overconfident stance of awarding themselves high grades for agreeing to the Paris Agreement.
The media too has been part of the problem of false reassurances by so vigorously applauding the substantively empty Paris Agreement as if it were itself a viable solution. I still remember my surprise when the venerable newspaper The Guardian (of London) heralded the 2015 Paris Agreement as "the world's greatest diplomatic success." Such over-the-top puffery about the Paris Agreement became counterproductive because of the false assurances given in 2015 that Paris had brought the climate challenge under control.
Here I collect and memorialize in chronological order my 21 Tweets posted over the past 10 days (including typos that I failed to avoid). This analysis presents my own perspective and takes note of some of my own law-related scholarship on the climate debate. Much of my scholarship focuses on the role of international trade law in the formulation of climate policy.
Although I continue to be disappointed that US and global policymakers have not done more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, I remain optimistic that even the ongoing too-little, too-late policies will be sufficient to prevent the low probability, highly ecosystem-destructive scenarios.
Why has the US been so unsuccessful over 30 years in leading and participating in an effective #globalclimateregime to prevent a climate change calamity? Let me count the ways. In a series of future Tweets, I will point to the major US missteps.
Climate1 In the beginning, US got it right. @POTUS GHW Bush 41 and EPA's Bill Reilly work creatively to achieve
@UNFCCC which makes control of greenhouse gasses a global goal. US Senate approves treaty in a 2/3 ratification vote.
@LeaderMcConnell votes for the climate treaty.
Climate 2. 1992-97. After EarthSummit (1992) which achieves
@UNFCCC, two US Presidents fail to request and US Congress fails to write domestic climate implementing legislation. The @WTO treaty of 1994 is implemented by Congress, but
@UNFCC treaty of 1992 is not implemented.
Climate.3. 1995. Debate blossoms among climate specialists as to relationship between @UNFCC and @WTO. I contribute this analysis in a conference organized by
https://charnovitz.org/publications/Aspen_Linkage_of_Trade.pdf
Climate.4 1997 The
@UNFCCC climate regime negotiates a @UNFCCC
Protocol to set quantitative emission reduction goals based on science. US Senate adopts a resolution 95-0 signaling Executive Branch not to sign on to an asymmetric treaty that harms US economy.
Climate.5. 1997 In defiance of bipartisan US Senate advice, and with @AlGore in driver’s seat, US champions @UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol which assigns emissions reduction targets to US, Europe and Japan, but not to China, India, Indonesia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc.
Climate.6 2001. Pres. George W. Bush makes clear that US will not join Kyoto Protocol. But Bush fails in any efforts to work with Congress to craft a domestic climate policy responsive to transborder competitiveness concerns. Climate mitigation devolves to subnational level.
Climate.7 2003. Pew Center on Global Climate Change publishes cutting-edge interdisciplinary analysis to promote feasible paths forward. I contribute the chapter “Trade and Climate: Potential Conflicts and Synergies.
Climate.8 2004. Fruitlessly, I propose that Congress empower the President to negotiate a global climate deal with other countries.
Climate.9 2009
@PIIE publishes “Global Warming and the Trading System” by Gary Hufbauer, Jisun Kim & Steve Charnovitz. The study recommends negotiation of a “Trade and Climate Code.” Unfortunately, governments do not undertake such negotiation.
https://www.piie.com/bookstore/global-warming-and-world-trading-system
Climate.10 2009
@SpeakerPelosi rushes thru House passage of Amer. Clean Energy & Security Act with 219-212 vote. This complicated bill is enacted before its text is publicly available. As it turns out, the haste is unwarranted because the Act is not taken up by US Senate.
Climate.11 2010
@UNFCCC adopts Green Climate Fund & Technology Mechanism. These programs spur important progress in private climate finance and climate-related technological innovation. For climate, the vision of bottom-up environmentalism in 1992 Agenda 21 is succeeding.
Climate.12 2012. In @HarvardBiz, Dan Esty & I propose a US carbon charge contingent on major economies, such as China and India, adopting comparable policies. Our contingent carbon tax proposal fails to attract support in Congress or Obama WhiteHouse.
https://hbr.org/2012/03/green-rules-to-drive-innovation
Climate.13 2015
@JohnKerry leads negotiations fto reach #ParisAgreement. Rather than ambitious deal that gains bipartisan Congressional approval, @BarackObama seeks hollow
@UNFCCC accord without substantive obligations. Goal is to avoid democratic accountability in Congress.
Climate.14 2015 #ParisAgreement assumes countries will make high unilateral GHG reduction commitments without mutuality, and without knowing whether aggregate commitments will restrain global warming. Another design defect is inattention to state responsibility for traded goods
Climate.15 2015-17 Obama joins and implements shallow Paris Agreement via Executive branch action. Bipartisan US Congressional approval is neither sought nor achieved. Meanwhile, Paris Agreement experiment plays out with innovation and growing transnational business support
Climate.16 2017 Donald Trump announces that US will withdraw from Paris Climate Accord, but begin negotiations to reenter the Accord “on terms that are fair to the United States.” Trump effectuates the withdrawal, but forgets to undertake any Paris Accord improvement talks.
Climate.17 2018 My essay “American Rejectionism” analyzes flaws of #ParisAgreement and proposes US re-engagement with International law. Empty Paris Agreement meets political need of many countries for low-cost virtue signal. Governments continue to fiddle while Earth burns.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3357030
Climate.18 2020 Congress passes 2124-page legislation containing Environment and Energy programs. Public Law 116-260 is so complicated that nearly a year later, it remains unpublished in US Public Law series. This law lacks any climate negotiating authority or any carbon tax.
Climate.19 2021 @POTUS rejoins #ParisAgreement with no strategy for fixing defects. @POTUS refuses to propose carbon tax. Congressional Dems seek unilateral subsidy and regulatory schemes that violate @WTO law. US persists in #TrumpBiden attacks on @WTO appellate tribunal.
Climate.20 US underperforms on climate due to: (1) excessive partisanship, (2) relying on Executive versus Congressional actions, (3) refusing to enact a carbon tax, and (4) overlooking need to harmonize US mitigation reciprocally with other major economies, especially China.