As United States president, Donald Trump is likely to emphasise the negative effect on the US economy of an historic climate pact to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, Italy's ex-environment minister Corrado Clini told Adnkronos on Tuesday.
"The latest and most accurate information on climate change comes from US government agencies, particularly NASA and NOAA. The data and images provided leave little doubt concerning the direct and indirect effects of the Earth’s rising temperatures. This is just as obvious in the Arctic and in Greenland as it is on the Tibetan Plateau – the birthplace of rivers that carry water to over two billion people throughout Asia," Clini said.
"The US is the world’s leading democracy and economic power and I doubt that President Trump – regardless of the questionable opinions he expressed on the supposedly political nature of climate change during his campaign – would challenge the data issued by his own country’s government agencies.
Instead, we should expect President Trump to demand insights into how the international agreements on fossil fuel divestment will impact the US economy. One of Trump’s winning cards to turn the electorate in his favour was his ability to leverage the discontent and the demands of the voters who lost their jobs in part, apparently, because of America’s recent environment and energy policies," Clini continued.
"In fact, Trump’s motivations are the same as the US Senate’s in 2015 and are quite close to those that led to the unanimous rejection of the Kyoto Protocol in 1999, during Bill Clinton’s presidency.
And we all know that if Obama had asked the Senate to ratify the Paris Agreement, the Senate would have rejected it too. In other words, Trump is more like the child from H.C. Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes rather than some evil genius trying to undermine a worldwide climate agreement," said Clini.
"Trump is zeroing in on the Paris Agreement’s economic impact, which so far has been dismissed as “someone else’s concern,” Clini said.
He was referring to the landmark deal to keep global warming “well below 2C” this century adopted by almost 200 nations at a United Nations climate conference in December 2015, which came into effect on 4 November.
"The Paris Agreement calls for a worldwide decrease in fossil fuel consumption, cutting its contribution to the global energy demand from 86% to 50% over the next 25 years. Specifically, the contribution of coal should drop from 30% to 12%, oil from 32% to 22% and natural gas from 24% to 15%.
During the same period, according the International Energy Agency, a 35% increase in the global demand for energy is expected, coming mostly from India, China, South-East Asia, South America and the Middle East. These areas cannot grow without more energy (in India alone, 300 million people have no electricity).
It is a very intricate puzzle. Trump raises an issue that concerns Europe as well as America: if we want to reduce worldwide fossil fuel consumption, then how can we offset the increased energy demand in emerging and developing economies without harming the developed economies? It’s enough to consider the on-going discussion in the US – but also in Germany and Europe in general – on the future of the mining, power and primary industries, or to analyse the strategies and investment programmes of the American and European oil companies carrying on regardless of the Paris Agreement, to realise that the veil of good intentions concerning climate change is actually covering a series of unresolved economic and geopolitical issues," Clini said.
"China could legitimately remind Trump and Europe that in spite of its percapita GDP being six times lower than America’s and 5 times lower than G7, the country invested twice as much as the US in clean technologies in 2015 (110 billion dollars versus 56) and has reached a decarbonisation rate of 4%, i.e. twice as much as the G7 countries.
In other words, can China be simultaneously the driver of the world’s economy and the country that pays the highest price per capita for decarbonisation?
And let us not forget that despite the significant role of renewables and nuclear power, India’s impressive growth in the next 25 years will call for a four-fold increase of coal consumption. In the context of worldwide fossil fuel divestment, how won’t India’s growth affect the economies of the US, Europe and Japan?" Clini continued.
"We should also mention the plans to fully exploit oil and gas in the emerging economies of Africa (from Mozambique to the Ivory Coast, Angola and Sudan) and South-East Asia (Malaysia and Indonesia), as well as in Brazil and in countries soon to be free from war and embargos (Iraq and Iran). In the context of worldwide fossil fuel divestment, how will these plans influence drilling off US coasts, in the North Sea and in the Mediterranean?
These questions should be answered by the INDCs (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) deposited by the individual countries that ratified the Paris Agreement. A study of INDCs shows that:
implementation is expected to bring the contribution of fossil fuel to worldwide energy demand down to 70% – a far cry from the envisaged 50% (ENERDATA);
the needed investments in infrastructures and technologies to meet INDC commitments are estimated at around 15 thousand billion dollars, whereas reaching 50% would require three times that amount (International Energy Agency)," Clini noted.
"In other words, in the next 25 years about 20-60% of the investments envisaged by the International Energy Agency for traditional oil and gas sectors (68 thousand billion dollars) are expected go towards the decarbonisation of the world economy.
In addition to investments to alter the world’s energy matrix, costs to repair and prevent damage caused by climate change must also be met. The World Bank has estimated that, on the basis of the available data and projections, 70-100 billion dollars a year will be needed between 2020 and 2050.
The Green Climate Fund, the Paris Agreement’s financial mechanism to assist developing countries, has neither the structure nor the financial power to back the required investments. So what rules and global financial mechanisms are required to ensure access to investments for countries and corporations while guaranteeing fair competition on the world energy market?
An answer is urgent not because Trump is the US president but because without an answer there is no way to successfully implement the Paris Agreement. Perhaps the climate negotiators on the entry into force of the Paris Agreement should ask for an urgent common agenda on the economy and geopolitics of climate change," Clini added.
"This agenda should be managed by the highest levels of the governments, the international financial and trade institutions as well as the global energy and industrial companies.
This is a way to address the intricate puzzle of climate change, without avoiding the “ uncomfortable” questions coming from the US. A global carbon tax and phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies could be the first item on the agenda, taking into account that most of the major oil and gas companies (Exxon Mobil in USA, BP, Shell, Total, ENI, STATOIL,BG, and lately ARAMCO), are supporting the introduction of a global carbon pricing to avoid unfair competition in the energy market and to “stimulate investments in the right low-carbon technologies”.
ExxonMobil is currently pressing U.S. legislation to pass a carbon tax. In the USA, revenues of a 50$/ton tax will raise roughly 300$ billion/year to be used in supporting new green technologies and jobs. In turn, China is introducing a carbon price in the power generation and industrial activities.
This could be the opportunity for “keeping the momentum” to create a common, understandable, external price on carbon: the first step towards worldwide balanced benefits of global decarbonisation. The dialogue is possible.
Let’s not make the same mistake when President Bush in 2001 and President Obama in 2009 were blamed for the Kyoto Protocol’s failure. In fact, the latter agreement fell through because there was no room to open up a dialogue amongst the different visions, including those of US Senate at that time," Clini concluded.
