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Donald Trump walks back into an elevator after emerging for a minute to speak to the
media at Trump Tower following meetings on Dec. 6, 2016 in New York City. Photo: Spencer
Platt/Getty Images
The fact that the agreement treats even these inadequate commitments
as non-binding, which means governments apparently do not have
anything to fear if they ignore their commitments, is something else
that was lobbied for and won by the United States.
The fact that the agreement specifically prohibits poor countries from
seeking damages for the costs of climate disasters was lobbied for and
I could go on. And on. Often the U.S. had help in this backroom
bullying from such illustrious petro-states as Saudi Arabia. When
aggressively lobbying to weaken the Paris accord, U.S. negotiators
usually argued that anything stronger would be blocked by the
Republican-controlled House and Senate. And that was probably true.
But some of the weakening — particularly those measures focused on
equity between rich and poor nations — was pursued mainly out of
habit, because looking after U.S. corporate interests is what the United
States does in international negotiations.
Whatever the reasons, the end result was an agreement that has a
decent temperature target, and an excruciatingly weak and half-assed
plan for reaching it. Which is why, when it was first unveiled, James
Hansen, arguably the most respected climate scientist in the world,
called the agreement “a fraud really, a fake,” because “there is no
action, just promises.”
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, right, speaks as Sens. Edward Markey, Maria Cantwell, and Tom
Carper listen during a news conference to urge President Donald Trump not to withdraw
from the Paris climate accord at the Capitol, May 24, 2017, in Washington. Photo: Alex
Wong/Getty Images
But weak is not the same as useless. The power of the Paris
Agreement was always in what social movements resolved to do with
it. Having a clear commitment to keep warming below 2 degrees
Celsius, while pursuing “efforts to limit the temperature increase to
1.5 C,” means there is no room left in the global carbon budget to
develop new fossil fuel reserves.
That simple fact, even without legal enforcement behind it, has been
a potent tool in the hands of movements against new oil pipelines,
fracking fields, and coal mines, as well as in the hands of some very
brave young people taking the U.S. government to court for failing to
protect their right to a safe future. And in many countries, including
the U.S. until quite recently, the fact that governments at least paid
lip service to that temperature target left them vulnerable to that
kind of moral and popular pressure. As author and 350.org co-founder
Bill McKibben said on the day the Paris deal was unveiled, world
leaders set a “1.5 C goal — and we’re damn well going to hold them to
it.”
And this was always the task for the global climate justice movement
when it came to Paris: to try to hold governments to the strong spirit,
rather than the weak letter, of the agreement. The trouble is that as
soon as Trump moved into the White House, it was perfectly clear
that Washington was no longer susceptible to that kind of pressure.
Which makes some of the histrionics in the face of the news that
Trump seems to be officially withdrawing a bit baffling. However the
Paris Agreement decision went, we all already knew that significant
U.S. backsliding on climate was in the cards under Trump. We knew it
as soon as he appointed Rex Tillerson to head the State Department
and Scott Pruitt to head the EPA. We had it confirmed when he signed
his Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline executive orders in his
first week on the job.
It was oil companies like the one Tillerson worked at for 41 years
whose relentless lobbying helped ensure that the commitments made
in Paris lack any meaningful enforcement mechanisms. That’s why
one month after the agreement was negotiated, Exxon Mobil, with
Tillerson still at the helm, came out with a report stating that “we
expect oil, natural gas, and coal to continue to meet about 80 percent
of global demand” between now and 2040. It was a bald expression of
hubris by the purveyors of business as usual. Exxon knows full well
It’s the same reason why the Tillerson faction of the Trump
administration thought it could reconcile staying in Paris while
simultaneously dismantling the centerpiece of the United States’
commitment under the agreement, the Clean Power Plan. Tillerson,
better than almost anyone on the planet, knows how legally weak the
agreement is. As CEO of Exxon, he helped make sure of that.
Some say that’s not the point — that the real risk in the U.S.
withdrawing is that it will encourage everyone else to lower their
ambition, and soon everyone will be breaking up with Paris. Perhaps,
but not necessarily. Just as Trump’s health care disaster is
encouraging states to consider single payer more seriously than they
have in decades, Trump’s climate arson is so far only fuelling climate
ambition in states like California and New York. Rather than
throwing in the towel, coalitions like New York Renews, which is
pushing hard for the state to transition entirely to renewable energy
by 2050, are getting stronger and bolder by the day.
Outside the U.S., the signs aren’t bad either. The transition to
And there is another call that is increasingly being heard from social
movements around the world — for economic sanctions in the face of
Trump’s climate vandalism. Because here’s a crazy idea: Whether or
not it’s written into the Paris Agreement, when you unilaterally
decide to burn the world, there should be a price to pay. And that
should be true whether you are the United States government, or
Exxon Mobil — or some Frankenstein merger of the two.
A year ago, the suggestion that the U.S. should face tangible
punishment for putting the rest of the rest of humanity at risk was
laughed off in establishment circles: Surely no one would put their
trade relationships in danger for anything so frivolous as a liveable
planet. But just this week, Martin Wolf, writing in the Financial
Times, declared, “If the U.S. withdrew from the Paris accord, the rest
of the world must consider sanctions.”
We’re likely a long way from major U.S. trading partners taking that
kind of a step, but governments are not the only ones that can
impose economic penalties for lethal and immoral behavior.
Movements can do so directly, in the form of boycotts and divestment
campaigns targeting governments and corporations, on the South
African model. And not just fossil fuel corporations, but Trump’s
branded empire as well. Moral suasion doesn’t work on Trump.
Naomi Klein’s new book, “No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics
and Winning the World We Need,” will be published this month.