(Graphic: Experts Discuss Impacts of U.S. Leaving Paris Climate Accord)
(Tim Profeta) Recently President Trump announced his with withdrawal from the Paris Agreement
on Climate Change.
I am Tim Profeta the director of the Nicholas Institute here at Duke University.
I’m here with my colleague Brian Murray, the director of the Energy Initiative to talk
about the implications of this action by President Trump.
Brian would you like to offer any thoughts on what this means?
(Brian Murray) Sure Tim, thank you.
I think I’m going to hit on two points here, I’m going to explain briefly what the scientific
rational is behind the Paris Accord.
And then talk a little bit about the policy mechanism that comes out of it.
The scientific rational is that there has been a long-term accumulation of green house
gasses in the atmosphere that has basically been a result of industrialization and energy
use that’s accumulated and that is causing a climate threat.
This has been long recognized in the scientific community that it is the accumulation of green
house gases that’s causing this problem.
Which means that as a society if we address the problem we have to figure out ways to
reduce the green house gases.
About 20 some odd years ago, the UN came together and formed what’s called the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change that says we have to figure out what to do about anthropogenic
climate change.
And where that process has led is to the Paris Agreement which was an agreement by 195 countries
to take actions to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The United States is the world’s largest economy and the second largest emitter of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
By stepping aside from the Paris Agreement and the commitments there of, that leaves
a significant hole in global efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and climate change risks.
So Tim, I guess one question might be then, with that in mind what does this mean for
the Trump Administration and with policy efforts in Washington and other parts in the United
States in terms of how were going to address the climate problem?
(Tim Profeta) Thanks Brian, to some degree this means a lot and some degree it means
a little.
I think that it was clear from the Trump Administrations policies already that they were going to roll
back many of the things the Obama Administration had put in place to meet the targets of the
Paris Accord.
So there may not be much of change in terms of what the policy on the ground will be.
But it does leave that hole in the Paris Agreement of the United States, second largest emitter.
And also it removes U.S. global leadership on this global problem.
For the first time really in our generation the U.S. is not going to be part of the design
of a solution to a great problem like this.
And for our businesses not part of the design of the markets that will be created as we
move towards cleaner technologies.
There also is a loss of some of the structure the Paris Agreement put into place to address this issue.
As you said, there's 195 nations that are part of the agreement. Each have come forward with what they thought they could do to make reductions
Bu the key to the Paris Agreement was the universal participation. Everybody made a commitment.
And then there was a check in and adjustment process to allow the nations to get down the path to where we need to go in our green house gas admissions.
(Brian Murray) Tim, I think what was important about that was how we got to Paris is that
the predecessor agreement to Paris, the Kyoto Protocol, did not have universal participation
and it was really considered dead on arrival in Washington that we would be able to advance
something that didn’t have universal participation.
So the Paris Accord itself was really designed with Washington in mind and that’s sort
of almost the ironic part about this.
Would you agree?
(Tim Profeta) Absolutely.
In fact, you know, you look at India and China.
Throughout our debate on climate change, we’ve always looked at India and China and whether
they will have to move in step with us or whether we will have to move first.
In Paris, India and China took strides to make reductions themselves, and sort of tried
to take that issue away from the political debate in Washington.
But nonetheless, United States is stepping away.
The last thing I want to ask is how durable a change this is for the United States.
This is an issue that’s very politically volatile in the United States.
We seem to swing back and forth between taking action on climate change and not and there’s
really a question of whether this is a change that lasts past the Trump presidency.
In fact, the steps that the United States has to take to withdraw, slights the United
States officially withdraw right at the election in 2020.
So one thing I think we do know is this issue has been put firmly on the ballot for our
next presidential election.
(Brian Murray) Well Tim, we talked about durability and that really brings up the issue of what
the mission is at Duke for trying to advance and accessible, affordable and reliable clean
energy system.
And that mission is completely undeterred by what has happened recently in the White
House in a declaration by this administration.
We will continue to educate tomorrow’s leaders, to conduct and support cutting edge research
and low carbon, climate friendly technologies and to engage with policy makers in the public
and private sector to try to advance those solutions moving forward.
I think we remain undeterred from that.
(Tim Profeta) Absolutely.
And thank you Brian for taking the time to talk with us today.
(Brian Murray) Ok.
Thank you.
(Tim Profeta) Cheers.