What are the consequences for global climate change of the spectacular US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement? According to the World Bank, in 2012, the US emitted 6,3 GtCO2-eq (billion tons of greenhouse gases, or GHG, expressed in terms equivalent to the global warming potential of CO2). The target set by Obama under this Agreement was to reduce them by 2025% to 26% in 28 in relation to the 2005 level. This would imply emitting 5,3 GtCO2-eq in 2025. Such a reduction was admittedly unrealistic [I], even if Obama's Clean Power Plan had been unblocked by the Supreme Court. Without the Clean Power Plan, the US is expected to emit 6,9 GtCO2-eq, a significant increase from 2012. Likely, under Trump and with fossil fuels now given free rein, this increase will be even greater. The current scenario, post-USA, implies global warming of the order of 0,1º C to 0,3º C, in addition to the expected increase of around 3º C to 4º C by the end of the century in relation to the pre-industrial period. This, of course, if all other countries strictly fulfill their promises [II].
It turns out that it is not necessary to be a prophet to realize right away that the targets for reducing GHG emissions by 2025 and 2030, which constitute the essence of the Paris Agreement, will not be honored by several countries, just as the targets of the Protocol were not. from Kyoto. There are two ways to exit the Paris Agreement. Donald Trump's bombast and stealth, which consists of not formally refusing the Agreement, but simply not complying with it, which, moreover, does not entail sanctions. It is important here to examine the behavior of large emitters. According to the Climate Analysis Indicator Tool (CAIT) from the World Resources Institute [III], only China, the USA and the European Union are responsible for more than half of global CO2-eq emissions, while, at the other extreme, 100 countries account for just 3,5% of these emissions. Here are the 13 countries responsible for around 76% of global emissions (in GtCO2-eq):
Without fanfare, without Trump's gamesmanship, at least four countries appear to be quietly leaving the Paris Agreement. Russia has not even ratified it and Putin recently declared that he does not intend to do so before 2019. The fact that he has not criticized Trump confirms that the Agreement is the last of his priorities. In October 2016, Canada ratified the Agreement. But it has no intention of reducing the exploitation of its oil resources. A month later, on November 29, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved the construction of two more pipelines, which will increase the country's capacity to export bitumen by 1 million barrels per day. [IV]. Trudeau declared at the Houston oil industry meeting (CERAWeek) in February 2017: “No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in its subsoil and leave it untouched.” [IN]. He was, naturally, applauded.
Australia signed the Agreement in November 2016, with a commitment to reduce its emissions by 26% to 28% from the 2005 level by 2030. But in April 2017, its prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, secured support from USD 1 billion to the Queensland coal railway, to be built by Gautam Adani, the famous Indian billionaire. Furthermore, its CO2 emissions rose by 1,54 million tons in the first quarter of 2017, due to energy generation from coal-fired thermoelectric plants. This increase “continues a trend of increasing national emissions that began in 2014 and is expected to continue for decades, according to the government’s own modeling.” [YOU].
We finally arrived in Brazil. As we know, and as you can read on the Ministry of the Environment website, “the Brazil committed to promoting a reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions by 37% below 2005 levels in 2025. Furthermore, it indicated a subsequent indicative contribution of a 43% reduction below 2005 emission levels in 2030 ”. Everything leads us to believe, however, that Brazil will not fulfill this commitment. Firstly because, in reality, it is transiting toward to fossil fuels, as shown in the graph below:
Between 2005 and 2015, the country increased its hydraulic generation by 27%, but almost doubled (from 20 to 38 GW) its energy generation from thermoelectric plants. Most important: two of the measures included in the Brazilian commitment were to restore, regenerate and replant 12 million hectares of forests by 2030 and eliminate illegal deforestation across the country by 2025. This second promise has something absurd about it. As Brenda Brito, from Imazon, pointed out, “promising zero illegal deforestation in the Amazon by 2025 means saying (...) that we will tolerate illegality for another decade. Worse still, the government is silent about the advance of deforestation in other biomes, especially in the cerrado”. No government promises that its law will be enforced... in the future. And, in fact, there is not a word about the Cerrado in the Brazilian INDC. Above all, illegal deforestation does not appear to be decreasing even in the Amazon. JBS, for example, has just been caught by the Reporter Brazil (in association with the The Guardian) buying meat from farms with slave labor and illegal deforestation [VII]. And although not yet sanctioned by Temer, “Provisional Measures (MPs) 756/2016 and 758/2016 are already stimulating new invasions of protected forests, in the region of the BR-163 highway (Cuiabá-Santarém), in the southwest of Pará” [VIII].
The restoration of 12 million hectares of forests, stipulated by the National Plan for the Recovery of Native Vegetation (Planaveg), is equivalent to less than a sixth of the area deforested by clear cutting in the Amazon since 1970. This target, modest and insufficient, has an estimated cost of between R$31 billion and R$52 billion, to be spent over the next 12 and a half years [IX]. Very little, if we take into account that the Safra Plan – credit for agriculture – is expected to reach R$190 billion for the 2017/2018 period. And as a substantial part of this Harvest Plan will be allocated to increasing herds, we can count on a significant increase in methane emissions from enteric fermentation of cattle. As seen above, almost half of the country's emissions come from agriculture. Therefore, barring a surprise in the next elections, Brazil is sneaking out of the Paris Agreement.
[I] See Jasmine C. Lee, Adam Pearce, “How Trump Can Influence Climate Change”. The New York Times , 08/XII/2016
[II] Cf. Oliver Milman, “Paris climate deal: fruitful world leaders prepare to move on without US”. The Guardian, 1/VI/2017.
[III] See if www.wri.org/blog/2015/06/infographic-what-do-your-countrys-emissions-look
[IV] See Andy Skuces, “Justin Trudeau approves two big oil sands pipeline expansions”. 1/XII/2016
[IN] Quoted by Bill McKibben, “Stop swooning over Justin Trudeau. The man is a disaster for the planet”. The Guardian, 17/II/2017: “No country would find 173bn barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.”
[YOU] See Michael Slezak and Nick Evershed, "Australia's carbon emissions rise in off-season for the first time in a decade”. The Guardian, 7/VI/2017.
[VII] Cf. “JBS bought from farms found to be using slave labor and illegal deforestation”. Amazon, 7/VI/2017.
[VIII] See “MPs already encourage destruction of protected forests in Pará.” Amazon, 6/VI/2017.
[IX] “The goal of recovering the forest costs up to R$52 billion”.Observatório do Clima (Climate Observatory)