President Donald Trump released his long-awaited executive order on the environment last week. As expected, the order started the process of reversing President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, loosened regulations on U.S. oil, gas and coal production, and revoked a variety of previous executive orders that integrated climate change into federal policy planning. Environmentalists were relieved, however, to see that one major climate policy was spared the axe, at least for now: U.S. participation in the UN Paris climate agreement. But they should not celebrate too quickly. Remaining in the accord is not the same as abiding by it. A zombie Paris agreement — with nominal participation but little practical adherence — carries a different but still substantial peril.
The Paris deal, which came into effect in November 2016, was lauded as the most important climate agreement in history. Nearly all the world’s countries pledged to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions, and committed to reporting their progress and deepening cuts over time. Wealthier countries, including the United States, promised funding to help poor, vulnerable states adapt. After the 2009 Copenhagen summit, which failed to live up to the lofty expectations placed upon it, the Paris accord was seen as a signal that the UN climate process could still deliver a big, ambitious agreement — and that the world might just yet avoid the worst effects of climate change.
To reach that agreement, however, there were inevitable compromises. U.S. negotiators, with one eye on a Congress hostile to any climate action and the other on a raucous and unpredictable presidential race, took steps to insulate the deal from U.S. politics. For example, the deal did not commit any country to specific emissions reductions, a step that would have required Senate confirmation. Instead, countries offered up emissions reduction pledges of their own, in line with domestic political, economic and technological realities. And though the deal is now a part of international law, it does not include specific enforcement capabilities beyond targeting laggards with public opprobrium.
This looser structure ensured that the United States would be able to participate. But it also ensured that the deal’s success would rely to an unusual degree on signatories remaining committed to the norms, not just the rules, of the deal. For public opprobrium to be a useful deterrent for countries that do not live up to their pledges, the world has to know they are failing to comply. Countries need to develop timely, transparent and consistent monitoring regimes that honestly track progress toward their emissions pledges. Expectations for ratcheting up emissions cuts over time have to be clear and constantly reinforced to prepare the public for changes and to reassure other signatories that any political or economic costs will be borne by all. If countries obfuscate or back away from the hope and ambition felt in Paris, that loose structure could collapse.
