Can the Paris Agreement on Climate Change Succeed without the US?

Henrik Selin, Associate Professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies, published a recent Op-Ed on the challenges faced by the Paris Agreement after the withdrawal of the United States

The Op-Ed, entitled “Can the Paris Agreement on climate change succeed without the US? 4 questions answered” was published in the The Conversation on November 12, 2019.

From the text of the Op-Ed:

The Paris Agreement was adopted thanks in part to strong political backing from the Obama administration, and U.S. disengagement now creates a political void. Other major emitters, including China and the European Union, have made it clear that they still support the treaty, but U.S. absence will change the political dynamics.

U.S. withdrawal makes it more important for the remaining countries to show strong political commitment to collectively implementing the treaty. At the New York Climate Action Summit in September 2019, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres called on countries to accelerate action to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Henrik Selin conducts research and teaches classes on global and regional politics and policy making on environment and sustainable development. His most recent book is EU and Environmental Governance, by Routledge Press, and is also the author of Global Governance of Hazardous Chemicals: Challenges of Multilevel Management by MIT Press. Selin is the faculty coordinator for the IR & Environmental Policy program. He is also a faculty member of the Center for the Study of Europe, and a Fellow with the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of Longer-Range Future, Boston University.