The Real Threat: Why Trump's Paris Agreement Exit Is Not The Biggest Problem 🌍🌿

climate change Dec 08, 2024

Trump's 🇺🇸 Paris Agreement Exit: Is That Our Biggest Problem? 🤔

"Rather than denying problems, focus inventively,
intentionally on what solutions might look or feel like." - Marsha Sinetar

At first I was like, oh 💩. But the more I looked into it 🧐 ...

President-elect Trump said he’ll pull out of the Paris Agreement, I believe him – he usually does what he says he will. In a video shared on NBC News October 21, 2024 he said:

“we’re going to do it again because it’s a ripoff”

At first I was like, oh 💩. But the more I looked into it, it seems like the Paris Accord may not be working.

Where did the Paris Agreement come from anyway?

December 1983 (41 years ago), I was in grade 11, “Every Breath You Take” by the Police was the #1 Billboard song, and United Nations Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar commissioned the Brundtland Commission to in part look into a number of environmental challenges. In 1987 the report was published introducing the groundbreaking concept of "sustainable development"which was defined as:

"development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs"

The report highlighted critical global environmental challenges and suggested that Global environmental problems primarily come from:

• Massive poverty in developing countries

• Unsustainable consumption patterns in industrialized nations

And get this, it emphasized interconnectedness of 3 key pillars: Economy, Environment, and Society 😲. The report framed environmental challenges as a global, collaborative issue requiring unified, systemic approaches. SYSTEM ⚙️⚙⛭ DYNAMICS!

Later at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 🇧🇷, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a multilateral environmental treaty was signed.

Stay with me! Here’s where it gets really good!

The Framework was initially signed by 154 states and came into force 2 years later in 1994 to:

stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system 🤯.
Allowing ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change
Ensuring food production is not threatened
Enabling sustainable economic development

You read that right! 30 years ago 🤨 the world had already agreed to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate 🌎🌍🌏 system.

And it was acknowledges that different states have varying capabilities to address climate change and responsibility for emissions. The UNFCCC then penned 2 major agreements 📝:

Kyoto Protocol (1997-2020) committed industrialized countries to emissions reduction, and later
Paris Agreement (2015) aimed to:

limit global temperature rise to well below 2°C
Preferably limit increase to 1.5°C
Requires all parties to report their emissions annually

So how’s it going??

So far, global GHG emissions have continued to grow. In fact, between 2015-2018, annual CO2 emissions increased by a billion tonnes!!! [2]. That’s the equivalent of emissions from 25 million 737 ✈️ flights from LA 🌅 to New York 🗽

And what's more, current national pledges are insufficient to meet the 1.5°C goal, not all countries are making ambitious or credible commitments, and OECD countries have been criticized for inadequate action[3].

According to the World Meteorological Organization's June 2024 report, there is an 80% likelihood of at least one year temporarily exceeding 1.5°C between 2024-2028.

Translation? We have already achieved 1.5 C increase 🎉

We seem stuck on continuing with a business as usual system that hasn’t been working.

November 24, 2024 at COP29 – a new goal was set to triple climate finance from $100 billion to $300 billion annually by 2035 and to scale up total finance to $1.3 trillion per year by 2035.

Well I’m not too optimistic about that 🙄. We haven’t even come close to the much smaller goals in the past, why should this really be any different?

What could we do differently that doesn’t require governments to just pay money?

Here’s 3 ways that would reduce GHG forcings (that’s another article, I’ll explain and link to this one) and probably save us a ton of money too:

Reduce our individual consumption of energy which would reduce overall emissions. For example, it's estimated that turning your thermostat down 3 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter (1.7 C) and up 3 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 1,050 pounds (about 476 kg) per year. Even better, by using a programmable thermostat, you can automatically lower your monthly energy bill 💰💰 by giving your heat and air conditioning a break while you are asleep or out.
Vote with your wallet. Do everything you reasonably can to not participate in linear economies that deplete. Instead support local production and reduce consumption of single use products ♻️. Reduce your own emissions or those you cause with your purchases
Shift our focus from annual GHG emission targets to reducing cumulative emissions. Annual GHG targets actually drive us to keep emitting for the next few decades 🥵. Emissions today will continue to have an ongoing forcing effect decades from now.

Read two articles below for more on this concept.

Citations:

🌍 Cumulative Effects could shape 🇨🇦 Canadian Climate Change Policy

David McLaughlin, BA (Hons), MA, MBA, a recognized Canadian policy expert 🧠 proposed a climate strategy for the Conservative Party of Canada in an article recently published in thehub.ca, focusing on cumulative emissions reductions as the key to meaningful climate action 🌱.

The proposal makes an interesting argument to shift our focus from what we don't want: annual carbon emissions 📉, to what we do want: reducing the growing cumulative emissions burden 🌍.

"this is skating to where the puck is going." 🏒

McLaughlin makes the point that climate change is generated by the cumulative effect of carbon gathering in the atmosphere from decades of previous pollution 💨. And he argues that a focus on how we can reduce future net emissions will be more effective than focusing on continuing to emit 🌱.

"In office, if not before, the Conservative Party will have to show how they will reduce carbon emissions, not just carbon taxes. No climate plan is not an option." 🔥

McLaughlin suggests that focusing on cumulative emissions offers multiple advantages:

Supports net-zero future trajectory 🌍
Encourages domestic clean technology solutions like carbon capture 🔬
Incorporates natural capital solutions like carbon sinks and wetlands restoration 🌳

So instead of setting targets for emissions (e.g. reduce GHG emissions by 40 % by 2050), focus on immediate cumulative carbon emission reductions in 5 year periods 📊.

He suggests providing provinces with targeted financial supports, refreshed every five years, contingent on provinces meeting each new cumulative emissions reduction goal 💰. This approach would open the door to people for figuring out how to meet or exceed these targets capitalizing on their regional advantages rather than a one-size fits all requirement 🗺️.

Did you know: Canada has never achieved a UN climate target since Kyoto 😱

You can read the full article here: https://thehub.ca/2024/11/19/david-mclaughlin-a-made-at-home-climate-plan-for-pierre-poilievres-conservatives/

Most of the emissions 🔥 we release today will still be heating ♨️ the 🌍 planet two generations from now 😲

An article by Alan Pears highlights the critical issue of how the current focus on annual carbon emissions and 100-year Global Warming Potentials (GWPs) may be misleading and counterproductive in addressing the climate crisis. Alan Pears is a prominent Australian energy efficiency expert with a distinguished career spanning over four decades.

The article emphasizes that it is the cumulative concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, rather than just annual emissions, that drives global heating. Pears notes,

"Every tonne of emissions adds to global heating and the longer it is in the atmosphere the bigger its cumulative impact."

There is a strong focus on reducing annual emissions to a target based on a ‘trajectory of progressive reduction’, and eventually ‘net’ zero annual emissions by 2050 or some other date. Pears notes,

"but this ignores the reality that it is the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and their contribution to radiative forcing in real time that actually drive global heating."

Focusing on annual emissions in climate change reports gives the impression it is the most important indicator of our efforts and as long as we decline towards ‘net’ zero by 2050, we'll be OK. But Pears says that's giving us the wrong impression.

He recently pointed out to some young students that "much of the emissions we release today will still be heating the planet when they are grown up and have kids of their own." This reality is illustrated by Figure 10 from the IPCC AR6 WG1 (see the image above the beginning of this article).

Pears also suggests the use of 100-year GWPs can distort the urgency of reducing short-lived but highly potent greenhouse gases like methane. Pears argues that methane contributed more than half as much to global heating as CO2 from 2010 to 2019, despite its lower concentration.

"Over the decade methane contributed more than half as much to global heating as CO2, despite its much lower concentration in the atmosphere."

You can read the full article here: https://johnmenadue.com/we-are-sending-the-wrong-message-by-focusing-on-annual-carbon-emissions-based-on-100-year-global-warming-potential/

What’s your take on policies addressing cumulative versus annual emissions? Engage in the conversation and help drive positive change by subscribing, liking, and sharing this post.

Remember, everything is connected.

Unless captioned otherwise, images are created by Barry J Wilson using Canva.com

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#cumulativeeffects #cfx #climatechange #trump #GHG #COP29