By Upasana Hembram
From holes in the ozone layer to steadily rising carbon dioxide, global warming and climate change have been established as a serious threat to the future of this planet. In 2015, world leaders, driven by collective environmental conscience, decided to take joint political and economic action and thus, the Paris Climate Agreement came into being.
The Paris Agreement was a major diplomatic breakthrough founded on significant technological, political and economic union. In this accord, 195 countries pledged to substantially reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Catalysed by grassroots level climate activism, the agreement adopted an ambitious goal to limit the earth?s atmospheric warming to 1.5 degree Celsius. On 1 June 2017, President of the United States, Donald J Trump, announced to the world that the US would be pulling out of the Paris Agreement.
Let nature?and diplomats decide
During the early months of his presidency, Donald Trump began undoing the Obama administration?s Clean Power Plan and started cutting back environmental regulations. Whether the US stays in or backs out, the Paris agreement shall remain intact. By abandoning the agreement, Washington is incurring on itself serious diplomatic and economic costs in the future.
Attaining cooperation on issues such as counterterrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, trade and monetary policy will become an onerous task for US diplomats and negotiators. Most nations view a country?s leadership on climate change as a metric to determine the country?s commitment on guarantees of security and foreign aid. As American employment in the clean energy sector increases, the US would also lose out on its economic benefits. The cumulative effect of this decision beleaguers US?s position as a global leader.
Racing to decarbonise
While the European Union and China continue to race each other in their efforts towards establishing clean energy, a lack of US leadership will stymie the collective global effort. Only the US possesses the political influence and resources to persuade other countries into actively participating. The agreement persuades participating countries to raise their targets every five years but is not binding. Getting other countries, especially those that are less responsible for these emissions, to raise their targets without US leadership will prove to be a difficult task.
A global race to decarbonise economies has developed new?potential for countries to become more ambitious. Progress in clean energy technology has facilitated profitable investments in the renewable energy sector. In many places, it is becoming cheaper to generate power from solar and wind energy than from coal.
Meeting renewable targets
Despite global events like Brexit and President Trump?s election, countries are aggressively aiming to reach their climate agreement targets. India doubled its solar capacity over the last one year and China and Saudi Arabia are investing massively in renewable energy sources. Canada has come up with a national carbon-pricing regime and the UK went an entire day by generating electricity without coal.
Technological advancement shall make clean energy a cheap option when replacing fossil fuels. Meanwhile, environmental activism has now become mainstream with citizens demanding more awareness and actions from politicians to address this environmental disaster. These incentives for politicians to address growing concerns of climate change shall accelerate progress to tackle the challenges of global emissions.
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