by Lea Morgan Elston, 3L, Fordham Environmental Law Review

The United States has regulatory tools to cut carbon pollution within the United States. The Paris Climate Accord is a multilateral treaty signed by 197 countries that can make the United States accountable so we use those tools we already have to reduce carbon emissions in a measurable way. It was drafted  “over two weeks in Paris during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) and adopted on December 12, 2015. …  President Obama was able to formally enter the United States into the agreement under international law through executive action in September 2016, since it imposed no new legal obligations on the country.

The Paris Agreement could not take effect until at least 55 nations representing at least 55 percent of global emissions had formally joined. This happened on October 5, 2016, and the agreement went into force 30 days later on November 4, 2016.”  The Treaty is binding on countries that have signed the agreement AND ratified it, depending on their national law. Only 3 countries, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, did not ratify it.  Whether the United States remained in the Paris Climate Accord depends on the election.

The purpose of the Accord is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Methane, carbon dioxide and other gases cause temperatures to rise, which is dangerous in itself. Even a one-degree increase leads to negative externalities like wildfires or other extreme weather events. A significant amount of misinformation about the Paris Climate Accord has been repeated by President Trump, including the debunked idea that adherence will harm the economy. In truth, the negative economic impacts of climate change cross borders. And while its true that most signatories are not yet reaching their emissions targets, even moderate cooperative action makes a difference.

Trump indicated his plans to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord in June 2017 and the White House proceeded to formally withdraw with notice to the UN on November 4, 2019. This notice sparked a one-year waiting period, so the withdrawal takes effect November 4^th, 2020. However, President-elect Biden promised to rejoin the Accord as soon as possible. This would likely put the United States back in the agreement by February 2021 or even earlier.

Whether America rejoins the Accord in the new year or stays out of it, our country’s choice will reverberate worldwide. “Under United Nations rules, China and India are considered developing countries and are not obligated to curb emissions. They agreed to do so as part of the Paris Agreement in large part because the United States was acting. With the United States out, other industrialized nations will have to press those emerging powers.” (source: NY Times). “Rarely is there consensus among nearly all nations on a single topic. But with the Paris accord, leaders from around the world collectively agreed that climate change is driven by human behavior, that it’s a threat to the environment and all of humanity, and that global action is needed to stop it.” (source: NRDC.org).