Climate Change Across the Atlantic
Since the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, our planet has sustained significant climate change, with the global temperature rising about 1.8℉. This has become an increasingly pressing issue as people across the world begin to feel the effects of these shifts. Rising sea levels have started to inundate coastal communities more frequently as hurricanes continue to break records in terms of intensity and damage and wildfires burn in places like the Balkans and western United States. This change in the Earth’s climate is mainly a result of the emission of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and CFCs. Four out of the top ten emitters of carbon dioxide, which is the most impactful greenhouse gas, are located in North America or Europe, making the two regions an integral part of efforts to make changes that increase sustainability.
The Paris Climate Agreement is an international treaty on climate change that was adopted by just about every country in the world in 2015 and enacted in 2016. The goal of the treaty is to decrease greenhouse gas emissions using emission-reduction targets in order to prevent the global temperature from continuing to rise and becoming “climate-neutral” by 2050. Unfortunately, scientists have decided that the efforts made as a result of the treaty have to be stepped up considerably if we wish to contain changes in climate before it is too late. The viability of the Paris Climate Agreement was brought into serious question in 2017, when President Donald Trump announced his intent to withdraw the United States from the agreement. The President was unhappy with the way that other countries like China and India were able to continue to use fossil fuels and emit greenhouse gases at a rate similar to rates before the treaty was enacted while the United States substantially limited its own carbon dioxide emissions. It took three years for the withdrawal to begin, starting the day after the President lost his reelection bid to Joe Biden. The newly elected President promised to reestablish the United States’ adherence to the Paris Climate Accords and place climate change on the top of the agenda for his administration. This has given new hope to the Paris Climate Agreement but developments in terms of implementation and adherence still have to be made if the treaty is to achieve its goals.
In addition to the Paris Climate Accords, there have been a number of joint efforts between the United States and the European Union to address climate change. In June, the two held a summit in Brussels, aspiring to increase cooperation in the struggle to save the planet. One of the main focuses of the meeting was to prepare for global climate negotiations later this year, emphasizing the partnership between Europe and the United States. The summit also directed attention towards the risk of carbon leakage, a ploy in which companies move their businesses to areas with weaker climate policy in an attempt to avoid the often costly changes to increase sustainability, and sustainable finance. Following the summit, President Biden announced a plan to halve carbon levels in the United States within the next two years while the European Union set an even more ambitious goal of a 55% reduction in carbon emissions in a similar time frame. Even more notably, the partners decided to allocate substantially more effort to help disadvantaged countries decrease their own emissions and deal with the effects of climate change that often affect them disproportionately. This demonstrates the way that cooperation between two partners as influential as the United States and the European Union can have a sort of “trickle-down/domino effect” that goes beyond the efforts made by the two individually.
All things considered, the actions of the European Union and the United States will have a profound impression on the worldwide struggle against climate change. Personally, I view the conjunctive actions of these two partners to be the single most important factor as we give our best shot at saving the planet. The two continents are home to four of the world’s top ten emitters of greenhouse gases, creating quite the obligation for changes to be made. Individual changes will have a substantial impact by themselves, especially in countries like the United States and Germany. Perhaps even more importantly, the EU and the United States can utilize their economic and political clout to encourage others to cut back on their own. This effect will have to play a part with regards to the emissions of countries like China and India, whose rates of emission have continued to rise along with their populations and growing economies. Encouraging or even pressuring countries in other parts of the world through bilateral efforts may be the most efficient and effective way of bringing everyone together in a struggle that will require the collaboration of everyone. Additional cooperation like that of the Paris Climate Agreement and the summit in June can help pave the way towards a more sustainable future led by the two partners on either side of the Atlantic.
