ENVIRONMENT: Ahead of election, Europe eyes ally in climate change fight

For countries hoping to avoid the worst of climate change, next month’s US  presidential election will be pivotal in determining the course of global climate action, experts say.

A win for the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, would inject new life into global cooperation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, according to past climate negotiators reports Al Jazeera.

A second term for President  Trump, on the other hand, could prove more disruptive than his first by emboldening climate-skeptic countries.

“The US needs to get back in the game,” said Kelley Kizzier, a former European Union climate negotiator who now works at the non-profit Environmental Defense Fund.

Paris aggreement
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, almost 200 countries pledged to work towards limiting global warming to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. That goal has since slipped further away, as climate-warming emissions continued to increase.

Trump rejected the agreement altogether and the US is set to exit it on November 4

A Biden win, experts say, could help put those efforts back on track.

Biden wants to spend $2 trillion over a four-year term towards reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 in the US, currently the number two emitter of greenhouse gases. Committing further to slashing emissions this decade could nudge China and other high-polluting countries to follow suit.

“If the United States, China, and the European Union move in that direction, then I believe we can take the rest of the world along with us,” Frans Timmermans, the EU’s top climate official, said during a Reuters news agency event last week.

Countries have been asked to update their Paris pledges this year. So far only 14 have done so, including Norway, Chile and the tiny Marshall Islands. The 27-country EU plans to upgrade its pledge in December.

United Nations scientists said in a major report last November that without steep emissions cuts by 2030, the world will be unable to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Biden, who would take office in January if he wins the November 3 election, has pledged to immediately rejoin the Paris Treaty. That would oblige Washington to make a fresh emissions-cutting pledge well ahead of the next UN climate summit in November 2021.

“Biden will have to move forward in the early days of the administration,” said John Podesta, a counsellor on climate and energy to former US President Barack Obama who is now an  adviser to Biden.

“Other countries will begin to judge the administration’s level of ambition based on that,” Podesta told Reuters.

While many US states, cities and businesses are already cutting emissions, the country is still falling short on the Obama-era pledge to cut emissions by 26-28 percent by 2025, against 2005 levels.

Trump, who has rejected mainstream science on climate change, has unraveled Obama-era regulations, seeking to free the energy and auto industries from the costs of regulations meant to protect health and the environment