Former U.S. envoy on climate change speaks to future of Paris Agreement

Although international climate change agreements are not always strongly enforced, climate change activists are alarmed by critical comments made by President Donald Trump regarding the 2015 Paris Agreement, which concerns carbon dioxide emissions.

Due to the ambiguity and debate surrounding these agreements, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Steve Pacala wanted to clarify the matter for students in his new class, ENV 200: The Environmental Nexus class. On April 7, Todd Stern, the former United States Special Envoy for Climate Change, visited the class to discuss the Paris Agreement's relevancy today and for the next century.

The lecture was formatted as a question and answer session, allowing students to ask questions about the past, present, or future, or to address their curiosities. Pacala began by having Stern define the differences between the 1992 Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.

“The Paris Agreement is a mix of legally binding and not legally binding,” Stern explained. He stated that, according to the agreement, countries must offer individualized targets for carbon dioxide emissions, but are not bound to one overarching goal.

According to Stern, the Kyoto Protocol differed in that all countries were bound to the same goal with regards to carbon dioxide emissions. He noted that this distinction gave it strength, as it was a bottom-up structure, rather than top-down.

Students quickly took control of the conversation, asking how the Paris Agreement might be enforced globally.

“It is generally a feature of international agreements that there aren’t really strong enforcement measures,” Stern said, adding that international trade could be a means of control. Required transparency could also aid in the enforcement of a bottom-up agreement, ensuring that all countries meet their own goals outlined in the agreement.

In light of President Trump’s recent announcements on climate and the Environmental Protection Agency, students expressed interest in the future of the Paris Agreement and its enforcement within the U.S.

“I doubted that the new president would pull us out of Paris because it would, quite apart from climate change, have such a damage in collateral effects because countries all over the world are very invested in Paris," Stern said.

He added that he hopes that this reasoning is still correct, but admits that he does not know. Considering that the Paris Agreement is a bottom-up agreement, he sees little reason to pull out of the agreement. However, Stern noted that he was troubled by recent actions and statements from the federal government, and he mentioned that “[these actions are] going to very much undermine the strength of the U.S. in negotiations,” significantly harming the steps taken to meet the agreement’s terms.

Stern described the setback as “sand in the gears, but not a fundamental reversal.” There are currently changes already set in motion in the United States that are reducing carbon dioxide emissions, such as the turnover of coal into clean power. In fact, wind production tripled and solar power increased to six times its 2007 output under the Obama administration.

“Two-thirds of all new capacity additions in the electricity sector in 2016 were wind and solar,” he said.

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A central motive behind Pacala's class is to educate students about climate change and lead them to make informed decisions. The class is offered under all distribution requirements, enabling students to understand the issue through varied lenses.

“For any practical document which is the result of a negotiation, some part of it reflects a rational response to a scientific, economic, and social imperative and some part of it reflects a compromise to political realities … knowing which is which allows you, I think much better, to formulate your own response to it," Pacala said about the Paris Agreement.

Students in the class also wondered whether individual voters can make a difference in U.S. climate policy. Stern answered this by saying that people can, of course, vote with their wallets by carefully considering the products that they purchase. He noted, though, that the more effective means of making a difference is to use one’s political voice.

“Members of Congress respond to anything that affects their own personal survival,” he said. Stern added that real change will come from speaking out on campuses, in marches, or through letters to members of Congress.

Stern’s guest lecture was part of ENV 200’s weekly discussion component, which takes place every Friday at 11:00 a.m. in McDonnell A02.