The question before us is straightforward: Is the Paris climate agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions a good strategy? A strategy, of course, is a set of tools used to achieve some goal. It is not the goal itself. Accordingly, we must ask: What is the goal?
If it is some unspecified reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions intended to moderate future temperature increases, then the Paris “strategy” is preposterous, because the agreement does not and even in principle could not contain a mechanism to enforce the promises offered by the individual governments. Moreover, many of these Intended Nationally Determined Contributions promise greenhouse gas reductions relative to a “business as usual” scenario, that is, relative to a future emissions path unconstrained by any policies at all. Such a commitment can be “achieved” by overestimating future economic growth, and thus emissions, over the commitment period; when growth proves slower than projected, so will emissions. Commitment fulfilled!
Note also that the agreement contains no target for global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, the agreement simply lumps together the plans submitted by the individual governments. The parties promise – hearts crossed, hands raised, may lightning strike – to take the actions needed to limit warming by 2100 to 2 degrees above (assumed) preindustrial levels. (There also is a secondary 1.5 degree goal, about which more below.) But such actions may or may not (see above) represent actual future emissions reductions. For example, the Chinese commitment is for an emissions peak “around 2030,” after which … what, precisely? And how high will that “peak” be?
Not to worry, say the proponents: The agreement puts in place a review process and recalibration of targets every five years. That means, obviously, that the initial promises might not be met; precisely how is it that the revisions five years from now, and five years after that, ad infinitum, will prove any more meaningful than the “landmark” promises just made? What is blatant is that this “review” process has nothing to do with emissions reductions; it is instead a mechanism guaranteeing endless meetings and Conferences of the Parties and permanent employment for the climate industry into the indefinite future. As an aside, the monitoring is to be done in part with satellite surveillance; am I alone in noticing the Big-Brother flavor of this exercise?
The promises are unenforceable, but are designed to satisfy the political demands for “action” by elites in wealthy, western societies and the political demands for transfer payments by officials in less-developed economies. Note that the aggregate effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would impose costs approximating 1 percent of global GDP, or roughly $600 billion to $750 billion per year, inflicted disproportionately upon the world’s poor. This problem is to be solved with a “Green Climate Fund,” beginning at $100 billion and growing annually. Will a welfare program for the world’s poor prove consistent with the economic growth absolutely necessary for a long-term reduction in grinding poverty? Don’t bet on it.
And precisely what is being purchased with so massive an investment of resources? Amid the thunderous self-applause that was the central characteristic of the proceedings in Paris, it is curious that virtually nothing was said about the future temperature effects of the notional greenhouse gas reductions being agreed. Is that not, after all, the goal of the strategy? This collective silence was no mere oversight; it would have been rather gauche to ask that question, because the answer is embarrassing. Suppose that we apply the Environmental Protection Agency’s own climate model to that task. Under assumptions highly favorable to the conventional climate view, the U.S. commitment (about a 27 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 2005-levels by 2025) would reduce temperatures in 2100 by about twenty-five one-thousandths of a degree. If we assume a 20-percent cut by China by 2030 – not merely a “peak” – that gets us another two-tenths of a degree. Ditto for a 30 percent-cut by the rest of the industrialized world by 2030. Add in another 20-percent cut by the rest of the developing world (an impossibility): another tenth of a degree at the very most. So the grand total for the “breakthrough” Paris agreement, if we suspend disbelief on a number of fronts, is 0.525 degrees. That would “save the planet”?
The Paris agreement establishes a secondary goal of limiting warming by 2100 to 1.5 degrees. Given that the evidence on climate phenomena is inconsistent with the “saving the planet” view, and given the fact that temperatures have been roughly flat since about 2002, this secondary goal is a tacit admission that limiting temperature increases to 2 degrees already has been “achieved” without any greenhouse gas emissions policies at all. The climate industry must find more work to do, and since its central ideological goal is an elimination of fossil fuels, the planet will never be saved, the goalposts will be moved continually and there always will be meetings to attend.
Accordingly, the Paris agreement is silly and destructive as a strategy to engender environmental improvement, but it works beautifully as a mechanism to transform the climate industry into a perpetual motion machine. Remember the Kellogg-Briand treaty of August 1928? It too was signed in Paris, interestingly enough, and it purported to outlaw war. Sadly, it did nothing of the kind, and the latest follies of the international politicians and bureaucrats will not save a planet that does not need to be saved. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.