The recent move of USA to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement is a setback in the consensus achieved on protecting the world environment. In this context, assess the future prospectives on climate control. (UPSC CSE Mains 2017 - Political Science and International Relations, Paper 2)
- President Donald Trump has announced that the United States is set to withdraw from the historic 2015 Paris Accord as the accord was hurting his country and economy very badly.
- However, he has said that he is open for a “new transaction” on terms that are fair to the US.
- With the decision to pull out, the United States will join the short list of countries including Syria and Nicaragua that are not a part of the Paris Accord which has been signed by 195 countries in 2015.
- The Paris Agreement on Climate Change came into effect in November last year.
US is withdrawing
- Donald Trump has held that the deal was not tough enough on India and China.
- According to Trump, Paris Accord was unfair to the United States.
- He has held that implementation of Paris Accord would adversely impact the paper, cement, iron and steel, coal, and natural gas sectors of the American economy.
- It would also inflict a loss of $3 trillion in GDP, loss of 6.5 million industrial jobs and $7,000 less in annual income for American households.
Implications of this decision
- Being the world’s second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, the exit of United States from the accord have raised questions about the fate of the accord. With no check on its emissions and no effort to reduce them, the Paris Agreement might fail to reach the goals it had set just half the decade prior.
- There are also fears that some more reluctant countries may also follow the steps of US in quitting the climate deal.
- As per the various estimates provided by entities like Climate Interactive and Climate Action Tracker, if US doesn’t reach its Paris Accord goal, then an additional 0.1 to 0.3 degrees Celsius will be added to global warming by 2100.
- With the exit of the US, China and EU are set to announce an alliance to take on a leadership role determined to protect the Paris Accord.
- The loss of morale and weight the Paris Agreement might suffer as the US leaving the Paris agreement might influence the other countries in doing so as well or losing faith in the Agreement and its objectives itself.
The USA emerged as a superpower post world war two and has been an active global power meddling in several foriegn and global affairs. The impact of the country with the highest GDP of nearly 20 trillion is surmountable on the rest of the globe.
Next
previous
Latest News
General Studies