Trump To Withdraw From Paris Climate Change Agreement, Again
Does it matter?
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement, according to a newly issued two-page memo. This reprises his decision to depart that international agreement back in 2020.
President Joe Biden, on his first day in office in 2021, signed an executive order rejoining that agreement. In accordance with the agreement, the Biden Administration sent along to the United Nations its goals to reduce U.S. economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions by 61 percent to 66 percent below 2005 levels by 2035. That goal will doubtlessly be nullified by Trump's new executive orders.
Does it matter that the U.S. will withdraw from the agreement again? After all, the Paris Agreement has not been notably successful in achieving its goals. In the nine years since its adoption, it has failed to stem the increase in global greenhouse gas concentrations and the relentless rise of global average temperatures.
In addition, the eco-modernists Vijaya Ramachandran and Ted Nordhaus at the Breakthrough Institute (where I have participated in and attended numerous conferences over the years) argued earlier this month in Foreign Policy that the Paris Agreement has significantly retarded the access to modern energy sources for hundreds of millions of poor people. Consequently, they suggest that the "impending U.S. pullout will…give the 77 low-income and lower-middle-income nations—which account for almost half the global population—the opportunity to abandon a process that has clearly not served them and, indeed, has often justified their continuing impoverishment." Their basic point is that poor countries should ignore the demands by rich countries that they adopt expensive and finicky renewable technologies like wind and solar and instead pursue economic development even if it is fueled by cheap abundant fossil fuel energy technologies.
In 2024, U.S. greenhouse emissions were about 20 percent below their 2005 levels. Although the Biden Administration pledged in 2021 to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent to 52 percent below their 2005 levels by 2030, the Rhodium Group consultancy estimated in December that the Biden Administration policies were actually on track to reduce them by 43 percent to 32 percent. Rhodium analysts also calculated that an incoming Trump administration rollback of Biden's climate executive actions would result in 2030 greenhouse emissions of 41 percent to 29 percent below their 2005 levels. If the Trump administration additionally succeeded in repealing the Inflation Reduction Act's tax credits, subsidies, and loans, 2030 greenhouse gas emissions would still be 34 percent to 23 percent lower than they were in 2005.
Interestingly, the Rhodium Group also projects that a rollback and repeal of Biden Administration energy policies will increase 2030 annual household expenditures for energy by $164 to $226. This is largely due to increased demand for liquid transportation fuels and the repeal of electricity generation and transmission tax credits.
In his inaugural speech, Trump pledged to "end the Green New Deal," which is likely a referring to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). As a matter of politics, deep cuts to IRA funding could well turn out to be unpopular since most of its subsidies and tax credits are being spent in Republican congressional districts and states. Despite Trump's promises to "drill, baby, drill," it looks likely that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions will not start rising but will instead plateau.
