Shaina here –

On February 19, 2021 the United States officially rejoined the Paris Agreement. This is an important shift in US climate policy so let’s go over what it means and what the Paris Agreement is! 

What is the Paris Agreement?

It is an international agreement to address climate change under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The stated goal is to keep the rise in global mean surface temperature to below 2℃ and ideally below 1.5℃. The agreement was adopted in 2015 at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC and agreed to by 196 countries.

What is the history of the Paris Agreement?

The formal history within the UN began in 1992 with the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The UNFCCC has established the vague goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to prevent ‘dangerous anthropogenic interference’ (DAI) with the climate. Over the years there were many efforts that took place under the UNFCCC to achieve this, such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which called for binding emissions reductions for certain countries over a short time period. One of the main issues with trying to avoid DAI is that what defines danger has different meanings for different people in different places. This meant that finding a goal that diplomatic representatives from all involved countries could agree on was rather challenging. A long and meandering path led to the decision to adopt the 2℃ (and hopefully 1.5℃) temperature target, and eventually to the Paris Agreement.

The US involvement in the process that led to the Paris Agreement is very complex. As the world’s largest historic greenhouse gas emitter the US had a lot of power during negotiations. Any international action aimed at addressing climate change must have the involvement of large emitters in order to be successful, however large emitters became that way through reliance on fossil fuels— and relatedly slavery and colonialism— and thus have an interest in seeing the use of them as an energy source continue, despite the urgent need for production to decrease. US negotiators worked to ensure that rather than avoiding binding emissions reductions the agreement instead had self defined commitments, and also that it avoided requiring things like liability for loss and damage resulting from climate disasters.

How does it work?

The Paris Agreement does not require binding emissions reductions meaning that counties are not actually required to reduce emissions by a certain amount at a certain time, nor are they required to tie their plans to address climate change to their historic emissions. Rather countries are only bound to participate in the process outlined in the agreement. That process consists of several steps. First, countries each come up with their own individual plans, called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for how they want to address climate change. These plans can be a combination of mitigation, adaptation, finance, and technology transfer. Then every 5 years they reassess and hopefully ramp up their action plans. Ideally each iteration brings them closer to net zero emissions by mid century (the term net here gives a ton of wiggle room for things like market mechanisms that may or may not actually lead to emissions reductions).

How is it working out?

To be honest, rather poorly so far. It has been five years since the Paris Agreement was ratified and during that time emissions, greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, and temperatures have continued to rise. While there was a slight decline in emissions in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Le Quéré et al 2020), that decline was not a result of countries taking action on climate change, but rather of the emergency lockdowns. The pledges countries have so far submitted would put us on track for around 3°C of warming by the end of the century. The annual COP meetings are where negotiations for Paris Agreement implementation happen, however the COP meeting that was supposed to take place at the end of 2020 was cancelled (youth held their own in its place). Countries were still required to submit updated NDCs by the end of 2020 and then negotiations will continue at COP26 in November.

What does the Paris Agreement say about climate justice?

To be honest with you, dear reader, this part irritates me. There is only one mention of climate justice in the Paris Agreement and it reads: “noting the importance for some of the concept of “climate justice”, when taking action to address climate change”. Climate justice is a term used to encapsulate the many ways that a changing climate is related to sociopolitical inequality across many scales- this can include the ways climate impacts disproportionately impact marginalized populations, the ways historic emitters have had an outsized contribution to creating the problem, and much more. In my opinion, and I am sure many of you would agree, justice is one of the most fundamental, if not the most fundamental, issue at play in the climate crisis. But it is only mentioned in passing here and as only being important “to some”. Many scholars have addressed shortcomings with the Agreement with respect to climate justice (I wrote a chapter of my own dissertation that will add to this body of knowledge), however despite its shortcomings and lack of robust consideration of justice the Agreement is currently the best hope we have for a coordinated international response. And we desperately need that. So this is where the general public can play a large role- we can advocate for policies in our countries and communities that will center justice as a way of bringing this concept to the forefront of the conversation.

What happens after the US rejoins?

The Biden administration will need to submit a new NDC with a renewed pledge. The pledge that was submitted under the Obama administration was considered ‘insufficient’. Then the Trump administration withdrew from the Paris Agreement (moving us into ‘critically insufficient’ territory) and worked to undermine climate action at every opportunity with numerous environmental policy rollbackss, deregulations, and anti-sciencee rhetoric. So Biden will need to submit something truly ambitious, and much stronger than what was done under the Obama administration. It will be important that they not only make an ambitious plan but that they show immediate progress towards justice centered emissions reductions. Their NDC will likely be based around Biden’s climate plan, which does look ambitious, and what they submit to the UNFCCC will need to be compatible with giving us the best possible chance of staying below 1.5℃ of warming in order to show that they are fully committed to justice and climate action. 

Rejoining the Paris Agreement is a necessary step for the US to get back on track with the international effort to address climate change. However we will need to watch closely over the next few months to see what the submitted NDC looks like and what concrete steps are being taken immediately to put those plans into action. 

For now, let’s celebrate this win and do all we can to ensure that this is successful!

References:
Le Quéré, C., Jackson, R.B., Jones, M.W. et al. Temporary reduction in daily global CO2 emissions during the COVID-19 forced confinement. Nat. Clim. Chang. 10, 647–653 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0797-x

Shaina here-

Have you ever wished there were more scientists involved with politics or politicians who were more informed about science? I certainly have. So when an opportunity to travel to Capitol Hill to get training on how to meet with legislators about climate science- and to actually meet with their offices- presented itself I jumped on it. Policy proposals that impact science are happening around us all the time and the best way for scientists to help ensure that policies are backed by science and support the scientific process is for us to get involved. There are many different programs through various scientific societies that provide training to student scientists and early career researchers on how to communicate their work to policy makers. The specific program I participated in is called Climate Science Day and is coordinated by 12 different scientific societies. The training took place at American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in March 2019 and my participation was sponsored by the American Geophysical Union (AGU). The objective is to provide a non-partisan way for us to meet with congressional staff, begin building relationships with offices, and learn about some of the work that is currently being done on the Hill.

In total thirty five early career scientists participated and we were broken into teams of three based on geographic region. My teammates were Logan Brenner from Columbia University and Heather Sussman from SUNY-Albany, and our team leader was Lexi Shultz the Vice President of Public Affairs at AGU. Together we met with 7 congressional offices from Massachusetts and New York. To prepare us for the meetings we had a webinar and informational packet to go through in advance of the trip. These materials covered how Congress is structured, what the differences are between the Senate and the House of Representatives and how that impacts the work each side does, what the important committees relating to climate change are, and how to effectively communicate during meetings. They also emphasized the unified ask of “support, communicate, and use in policy discussions and decisions the scientific community’s consensus on climate science.” When we arrived in DC we had one day to attend a training at AAAS, meet our teammates, and prepare our materials for the next day’s congressional visits.

We had a limited time to prepare for our meetings. We all arrived the day before the meetings were to take place and attended a training at AAAS where we learned how to conduct a congressional visit, heard from a panel of staffers, and met our teammates and team leaders. To have a successful meeting you need to be knowledgeable about who you are talking to. Meetings rarely happen with the legislators themselves, instead they are usually with congressional staffers. The staffers are usually people with scientific backgrounds and occasionally they are themselves early career scientists interning as fellows sponsored by various professional organizations to learn more about the connections between science and policy. They are also very important to getting things done on Capitol Hill and are instrumental in carrying out the work that happens in the offices. Their time is extremely valuable and it is important to speak to them as though they are highly knowledgeable about these topics- because they are!- and to express your gratitude for their time. My three favorite staffers we met with were all fellows and had backgrounds in teaching, solar development, and marine biology!

The most valuable part of the training was the breakout sessions with our teams to decide what our specific asks were from each office and who would lead each meeting. Having a specific ask is very important as this is the action step you are hoping to convince your representative to take. The ask varies based on what you think your member of Congress is likely to want to do and what actions they have taken in the past. For members who are less engaged on climate issues asks should revolve around getting them to commit to becoming more involved. For us one of the offices we met with was of a Rep Katko (R-NY-24). We noticed in looking through the committees he was on that he was the only member of the New York delegation not on a specific environmental committee. We chose our ask for that office to be for him to join that committee. In the meeting at that office we spoke to his staffer about environmental issues that are a concern in his district, how climate change can exacerbate them, and how his work in joining this committee could benefit his constituents. For congressional members who are already active on climate issues we first thanked them for being leaders on such a pressing issue and then asked of them to go a bit farther, for instance by giving a floor speech on recent climate publications put out by government scientists such as the Fourth National Climate Assessment, or co-sponsoring a piece of upcoming environmental legislation. For members in our own local districts, we included in our asks invitations for them to come visit our research labs and perhaps do a public event with us to bring light to scientific work on global issues happening in their local districts and policy work they are doing to advance solutions.

On the day of the meetings we donned our business attire and convened on Capitol Hill. Logan and Heather each led two of the four meetings with the NY offices and I led the three meetings with MA offices. First up was Rep. Clark of MA’s 5th congressional district. It went very well and was the perfect meeting to ease us into the day. We met with a staffer who was a fellow with a background in education. She was eager to hear about our work and said Rep. Clark would likely be happy to complete our ask of giving a floor speech. One of the highlights of our day was meeting with Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY-6) who we requested join SEEC, the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, chaired by Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY-20) which is one of the most active and effective congressional committees on environmental matters. Later in the day we met with Rep. Tonko’s office and they mentioned that they had just received a call from Rep. Meng asking to join his committee! This was a huge win for us as it meant that Rep. Meng had already acted on our ask just an hour or so after meeting with her office. Another highlight of the day was meeting with the Legislative Assistant for Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY-13). He was very interested in connections between social justice and climate change and how to improve the health and wellbeing of the people in his community, while providing them with good jobs, and working to combat climate change all at once. We ended the day at MA Senator Markey’s office where we met with two staffers who were fellows just out of graduate school- one was a marine biologist and the other worked on solar development and sustainability. We had a great conversation on scientists and scientific data that are being used to craft legislation for the Green New Deal.

The two days on Capitol Hill were a whirlwind of meeting new people and learning how scientists and policy makers can work together to make substantive change. If you want to get involved in communicating with your legislators, check with the scientific societies you are a member of to see if they have trainings coming up. You can also reach out on your own to your local legislators and offer your expertise and knowledge for policy work they are currently doing. In addition if you ever find yourself in Washington DC you can also ask for a meeting yourself if you would like to share your science and find ways your work and expertise can benefit their offices. With so much work needed in developing concrete actions that will help implement a global transition to a climate friendly world we will need everyone getting involved and offering to help in any way they can. You have so much to offer, so get out there and start making it happen!