Donald Trump’s recent executive order ‘Promoting energy independence and economic growth’ could be the cause of quite a stir. Climate analysts are looking sceptically at what they perceive as a full-blown attempt by the US President to roll back the hard work in the Obama era that painstakingly had brought about the clean power plan.
In a nutshell, the CPP legislative framework was designed to ensure efficient use of fossil fuel across the US, set clear cappings across states on greenhouse gas emissions and formally set the pace for the phaseout of coal-fired power stations across the US in the absence of adequate retrofitting with carbon capture and storage technology (CCS).
CCS, a very recent technological development, is meant to capture greenhouse gas releases to the atmosphere while power plants continue to run on conventional fossil fuel such as coal. On paper at least, the technology is perceived to provide the global energy industry with the required elbowroom that should allow continued use of fossil fuel until the cleaner alternatives gather enough momentum and, hopefully, eventually take over.
There has been speculation that even the 2015 Paris climate agreement has been specifically drafted with the implications and prospects of new technologies, particularly CCS, in mind.
Contrary to the wishful thinking of many environmental NGOs, more pragmatic policymakers have long realised that the outright closure of fossil fuel power plants or, rather, complete abstinence from fossil fuel extraction and use, are destined to remain a practical impossibility for decades to come. And this despite any of the advances being made in the global renewable energies sector.
Careful interpretation of the wording of article 4 of the Paris agreement says it all: “…to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of the century, …” In no way does this noble target, wisely versed, exclude continued use of fossil fuel and never mind the reference to sustainable development a few words later in the same provision.
At the time of Paris COP21, when the milestone climate treaty was adopted, the green lobby had voiced its dismay that it was expecting a harder stance towards the future of fossil fuel, which had not materialised. Back then, when the Trump scenario was quite simply unthinkable, legislators hailed the Paris climate triumph in its ability to bring all countries on board thanks to the political and legal craftsmanship that put together an international treaty that would still permit the necessary room for the variegated socio-economic development needs of all nations while acknowledging the urgency to tackle global climate change.
Many will recall that climate delegates were right through the Marrakesh COP22 when news reached the conference that Trump had won. The rattling sound of Trump’s famous tweet that climate change was “a hoax invented by the Chinese” purposely designed to stifle the US economy was never heard so loud.
The seeds of destruction of the global climate process could be closer to home
The Paris success was possible, after all, thanks to the joint agreement on curbing greenhouse gas emissions that had previously been reached between Barack Obama and his counterpart, Xi Jinping, in 2014. No other initiative alone, not even the EU’s onerous 2030 climate and energy framework, through which it expected to lead in Paris, would have secured the momentum that was required to make the new international climate agreement a tangible reality.
The history of Obama’s clean power plan is quite complex but the turning point came with the so-called 2009 ‘endangerment finding’, whereby the US Environment Protection Agency, supported by a legal court case, upheld that greenhouse gas emissions not only constituted ‘pollution’ but was also a threat to American health and welfare. It took until 2015 for the final draft of the CPP to take shape but well in time to secure the US with a sufficiently robust position not just in its separate dealings with China but also as preparations towards Paris COP21 were steadily underway. A couple of years later, the question now is whether Trump’s recent EO actually rolls back this process too dangerously to the extent that the Paris climate treaty in its entirety is factually being jeopardised.
Despite claims that the Trump administration would be quick to withdraw the US from the Paris agreement, observers are always quick to point out this has not happened so far. Common sense dictates that no international legal instrument can ever be considered in isolation let alone a historic milestone like the new climate regime. Hardly has such a fine-tuned delicate balance among all nations ever been achieved.
One thus fails to see the wisdom in the US actually withdrawing from its obligations under Paris that would threaten the very relevance of the treaty itself. While Trump’s EO could indeed constitute a significant weakening of the CPP provisions, technically compromising not just the US position with respect to Paris but also Paris itself, it does not necessarily mean that any action to rejuvenate the US coal industry will be successful or that it lacks conformity with the wider picture of the current climate regime. This can only be judged perhaps by factoring in the economics of natural gas and the global LNG industry and considering the political futures of the energy industries in Russia, Norway and the other main stakeholders that sustain the major world economies, including the EU.
The global picture of climate politics and global energy looks as blurred as it is complicated. The US will surely be weighing the messages conveyed by the Chinese in their negative reaction to Trump’s decision. As a rising economic giant, China has its cards to play and its assertion that it is not prepared to bend over backwards on greenhouse gas emissions unless the US plays ball will not be taken lightly, not even by any of the US allies.
In gauging their moves on the way forward with climate policy, Trump and his advisers will now consider their moves far more carefully in the aftermath of the serious debacle the new administration has had to endure with its failed attempt to repeal Obamacare. The US establishment can indeed be quite discerning and it has shown that, when it really matters, not even presidential powers can go unrestrained.
There is no question that the widest implications of Trump’s latest executive order should not be downplayed, especially in the light of any prospects for the US coal industry.
Climate analysts should, however, be searching for crevices in the future of the Paris treaty by also looking elsewhere. A case in point is Brexit and what the upcoming negotiations between the UK and the EU should ultimately distil with respect to how the UK’s exit of the single market would affect Europe’s flagship climate action mechanism, that is the emissions trading scheme, and the plethora of legislation that falls under the 2030 climate framework.
The seeds of destruction of the global climate process could be closer to home.
Alan Pulis specialises in environmental management.
sapulis@gmail.com