Elizabeth May, lawyer, environmental activist and leader of the Green Party of Canada, is a highly skilled analyst of national and international policy in the field of sustainable development. Her comments to the recent Scaling Up 2017 bioeconomy conference in Ottawa (November 27-29, 2017) were eagerly awaited by attendees who responded with an almost audible gasp when Ms. May explained why she is not worried by President Donald Trump’s announced withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Ms. May had been at the recent 23rd Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn, Germany (November 9-16, 2017). She is a great networker, and although her analysis differs from some Canadian environment watchers, it is almost certainly based on conversations with environment policy analysts from around the world. Her key point at Scaling Up 2017 was that those who are eager to see action on climate change under the 2015 Paris Agreement ratified by 171 countries have nothing to fear from President Trump’s announcement that the United States (U.S.) will withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

This therefore means that there is no need for companies in the overwhelming majority of industrial and industrializing countries to question or delay making the investments needed to realize the letter and spirit of the Paris Agreement.

Ms. May pointed out that although President Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement, he did not pull the U.S. out of the UNFCCC. This essentially means that the U.S. will stay engaged in the work of the UNFCCC and that there will be an opportunity for the country to re-engage with the rest of the world on the Paris Agreement, should it choose so in the future.

Every multilateral treaty incorporates an exit provision, she said, and neither the Kyoto Protocol nor the Paris Agreement is an exception. The UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement all have the same exit provision: once each has been in effect for three years, a country can give written notice that it intends to withdraw, and the withdrawal takes effect one year later. Ms. May pointed out that even if the U.S. government were to submit a notice to pull out from the Paris Agreement at the earliest possible date, the soonest an exit could take effect would be after the next U.S. presidential election.

Ms. May is convinced that President Trump’s efforts to revive the coal industry in the U.S. will come to naught because decisions to move away from coal have already been made and utilities are not going to return to coal-fired generation where it has already been phased out.

One area where President Trump’s announcement could have a major effect is with respect to the money that was committed by the U.S. to the global climate change effort. The Paris Agreement promises US$100 billion to developing countries by 2020, and this is in addition to U.S. commitments to help fund the institutions and infrastructure of the climate change effort.

In response to President Trump’s announced withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has promised to personally pay an amount of money equal to the now presumably lost U.S. commitment to fund the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and President Emmanuel Macron of France has pledged that France will replace the U.S. contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The incoming president of the Conference of the Parties is from Fiji and Ms. May expects this will mean that many Fijian words and ways of negotiating that are very inclusive of civil society will enter the climate change arena over the next year. The 2018 workplan, Where Are We Now, Where Do We Need To Be, and How Do We Get To Where We Need To Be, encompasses an approach known as the Talanoa dialogue.

The UNFCCC explains that “Talanoa is a traditional word used in Fiji and the Pacific to reflect a process of inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue. The purpose of Talanoa is to share stories, build empathy and to make wise decisions, which are for the collective good. The process of Talanoa involves the sharing of ideas, skills and experience through storytelling. During the process, Parties build trust and advance knowledge through empathy and understanding. Blaming others and making critical observations are inconsistent with the building of mutual trust and respect, and therefore inconsistent with the concept of Talanoa. Talanoa fosters stability and inclusiveness in relation to dialogue, by creating a safe space which embraces mutual respect for a platform for decision making for a greater good.”

In Ms. May’s opinion, it is clear that the efforts that President Trump made to derail the Paris Agreement have been a failure, but the challenge remains that even if all countries achieve their Nationally Determined Contribution, this will not be sufficient to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be providing a detailed pathway on what needs to be done globally to achieve the 1.5-degree target of the Paris Agreement. Canada’s current target is one of the weakest in the industrialized world and represents perhaps one-third of what needs to be done so, in Ms. May’s view, action on climate change is likely to remain an extremely important priority for Canada, and hence for all Canadian people and organizations in 2018.

Information about the We Are Still In Coalition can be found at www.wearestillin.com.

Colin Isaacs is a scientist and analyst with CIAL Group who focuses on sustainable development for business. He has been involved in undertaking and reviewing a number of LCA studies. He can be reached at (416) 410-0432 (phone); (416) 362-5231 (fax); and colin@cialgroup.com (e-mail).

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