Administration Officials Confident Paris Deal Will Stick

Abby L. Harvey
GHG Daily
1/11/2016

Regardless of pushback from the Republican-led Congress, the uncertain future presented by the upcoming presidential election, and a slew of legal challenges to core parts of the Obama administration’s climate plan, senior officials late last week expressed confidence that the United States’ role in the recently struck Paris climate agreement will hold. “We feel very confident that … the next administration will continue to deliver what’s needed in other to ensure low-carbon clean economic growth through those kinds of standards,” Rick Duke, deputy director for climate policy at the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change, said during an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Paris agreement is the first in which all of the nearly 200 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change member countries, both developed and developing, are held accountable for acting to prevent climate change. The agreement will take force in 2020, replacing the Kyoto Protocol, under which only developed nations were called to action.

The agreement consists of a legally binding framework under which countries have submitted nationally determined contributions (NDCs). The NDCs are public commitments developed by each government declaring what steps they will take to help limit global temperature rise. The targets in the NDCs themselves are not legally binding, in part because an agreement including legally binding targets would require ratification by the U.S. Senate, which is extremely unlikely. The United States’ inclusion in the agreement, due to its status as the world’s largest economy and second-largest emitter of CO2, was integral to its success.

The agreement will open for signature on April 22 at a ceremony in New York City. The agreement will remain open for world leaders to officially sign for one year. It remains unknown if President Barack Obama will attend the New York City ceremony and sign onto the agreement at that time or if he will sign at a later date.

Regardless of when the U.S. signs the agreement, several factors could affect the nation’s ability to comply with its pledges, which included cutting the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. While the agreement does not require congressional ratification, the Republican-led body has tried several times to put in a wrench in the administration’s climate-related efforts. Congressional Review Act resolutions aimed at overturning regulations at the core of the president’s Climate Action Plan have passed both chambers, only to be met by a presidential veto. Congress has threatened budget riders to overturn environmental regulations. Funding for the climate-related programs has also been on the chopping block through the appropriations process.

Thus far, the administration has worked around Congress through vetoes and executive actions. However, there is little guarantee the next administration will uphold these actions. Several Republican candidates have expressed disbelief in climate change. At a recent hearing of the Senate Commerce Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, Republican presidential candidate and panel Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas), claimed that satellite data shows there has been no global warming for 18 years, a claim he has touted for several months that earned him a “Mostly False” grade from PolitiFact in March. The satellite data is questioned in part because it starts its measurement in 1998, a year in which the world experienced a very large El Nino event that gives the data an unreasonably high baseline temperature.

Cruz currently ranks second in the polls, behind Donald Trump, who has said he does not believe in climate change. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is currently third in the polls and has largely skirted climate change questions throughout his campaign. Ben Carson, polling forth, has openly criticized climate science.

While congressional efforts to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon emissions standards for new and existing coal-fired power plants, which are integral to the nation’s compliance with the Paris Agreement, have failed, a lengthy legal battle looms.

The regulations, which essentially mandate the use of carbon capture and storage technology for new-build coal plants and require states to develop action plans to meet federally set emissions reduction goals, were challenged as soon as they were eligible in October.

The legal case is likely to end up before the Supreme Court, but the administration believes the regulations ultimately will not be struck down. “EPA has, over a period of decades, been sued repeatedly and managed through all that,” Duke said.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, speaking at an event hosted late last week by the Center on Foreign Relations said she believes the regulations will survive legal challenge, though if they do not, the administration would “welcome Congress taking action. We don’t see that coming up so we’ll look at other opportunities.”