Chapter 11
The International Scene
Reducing carbon pollution in the United States is pivotal to spurring climate action around the world.
“There is no Plan B because there is no Planet B”
— U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the People’s Climate March in New York City, September 2014
The United States isn’t going it alone.
From China, the world’s biggest carbon polluter, to the tiny islands of Fiji, other countries are also moving to reduce carbon pollution in the realization that climate change is a grave global threat.
Still, the Obama administration’s efforts to reduce carbon pollution from America’s power plants, the largest source of carbon pollution in the United States, are widely regarded as pivotal to spurring even more — and more significant — international action.
“When the world’s largest economy acts, it sends a powerful signal to other governments that they also can — and must — act aggressively on climate change,” I told the House Science Committee on April 15, 2015.
The U.S. pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 comes as negotiators from nearly 200 countries are due to meet in Paris in December 2015 to finalize a new international agreement to slow the impacts of climate change. The agreement will include emissions-reduction targets for all major emitters.
“When the world’s largest economy acts, it sends a powerful signal to other governments that they also can — and must — act aggressively on climate change.”
The global gathering has gained new urgency in the wake of a warning by scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that climate change, if left unchecked, will increase the likelihood of “severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts” to our planet.
“No nation is immune…I call on all countries to join us — not next year, or the year after, but right now, because no nation can meet this global threat alone,’’ President Obama said at the U.N. Climate Summit in New York in September 2014.
Many countries are already taking action — 61 nations have passed laws to promote clean energy and 54 have passed legislation to advance energy efficiency, according to a study by the Global Legislators Organisation (GLOBE International) and the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
About 500 climate-related laws have been passed worldwide, up from the less than 40 in 1997 when the Kyoto Protocol, the first international climate change treaty, was adopted.
“No nation is immune…I call on all countries to join us — not next year, or the year after, but right now, because no nation can meet this global threat alone.”
Countries big and small have committed to reducing carbon pollution.
In November 2014, China and the United States reached an agreement on a plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions. China agreed to stop its emissions from growing by around 2030 and to try to reach the peak earlier. They will also expand the share of energy consumption from zero-emission sources by about 20 percent by 2030. More actions are expected from China in the coming months as it prepares its formal proposed target for the new climate agreement in December 2015. The United States agreed to cut net greenhouse gas emissions 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, based upon the tools in the existing law.
India, the world’s third-largest carbon emitter, is moving to double its wind and solar power production by 2020. Mexico recently announced an ambitious new commitment to peak its greenhouse emissions in 2026 and reduce them by 22 percent by 2030. The European Union said it would cut its emissions at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
Even Fiji, whose total greenhouse gas emissions are less than 0.06 percent of total global emissions, has committed to converting to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030 — up from its current 60 percent renewable energy usage.
The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change also has compiled a long list of actions taken by national governments. The United States has taken a number of actions — including tougher vehicle fuel-economy rules, a $3 billion commitment to the international Green Climate Fund to help poorer countries address climate change, and, now, the first-ever limits on carbon pollution from power plants — seen as critical to spurring action by other nations.
For almost two decades, inaction on climate change in the United States has been a major stumbling block to securing strong international response on climate change. Other countries often perceived that the United States wasn’t willing to walk the walk.
But strong domestic action in the past couple of years has begun to change that perception, I told the House Science Committee. “When the United States is willing to step forward domestically, it can have a catalyzing impact in other countries.”
“History proves that U.S. leadership can unleash global progress.”
When President Obama rolled out his climate action plan in June 2013 at Georgetown University, it positioned him to “show up at the global climate change negotiating table with a credible, concrete action plan in hand, one that he can use to force action from other nations,’’ reported the National Journal.
“Make no mistake — the world still looks to America to lead,’’ Obama said in the speech. “As the world’s largest economy and second-largest carbon emitter, as a country with unsurpassed ability to drive innovation and scientific breakthroughs, as the country that people around the world continue to look to in times of crisis, we’ve got a vital role to play.”
Challenges remain to encourage countries to commit to aggressive targets. In the coming months, more nations will announce their climate targets as they lay the foundation for the new agreement in Paris in December 2015.
But while opponents of climate action in the United States have argued that we shouldn’t act until other nations do, the evidence is clear: Other nations are acting.
“History proves that U.S. leadership can unleash global progress,” EPA administrator Gina McCarthy told the Council on Foreign Relations in March 2015. “The EPA’s actions get the United States sprinting out of the gate. That’s what climate leadership looks like.”
From Clean Power: The Case for Carbon Pollution Limits
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