US to have COP25 presence, despite Trump's Paris withdrawal

The United States will send a delegation to the 25th COP conference on climate change in Madrid, which begins on Monday, only weeks after America began its withdrawal from the Paris accord.

To better understand Washington's position and the consequences of the US exit, which was initiated by President Donald Trump, AFP interviewed Todd Stern, who participated in the COP21 negotiations in 2015, which resulted in the Paris climate treaty.

Stern, who led former US president Barack Obama's climate team from 2009 to 2016, is now an expert at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

Below is the interview, condensed for clarity:

- Why does the United States still send delegations to COP conferences? -

STERN: "They continue to go and to participate at a technical level in the negotiations, in a quite useful way actually."

"These are people who have been negotiators for a long time, who have relationships with other negotiators all over the world, who were knowledgeable and trustworthy."

- Are there any US positions on climate that have held constant in international discussions throughout the years? -

STERN: "The US, whether it was (former US president George W) Bush or Obama, or even during this period of the Trump administration, was obviously not a supporter of the kind of hard bifurcation of the old-fashioned firewall that was embodied by the Kyoto agreement (signed in 1997)."

"We were not going to agree to look to anything which said, here's a set of legally binding obligations for developed countries, but nothing for developing countries. That was Kyoto... The negotiators could show up to negotiations during the Trump administration and still be free to continue to advance that type of position."

- Can the Paris accord survive if Donald Trump is re-elected in 2020? -

STERN: "The damage is that you just inevitably have countries who are not going to do as much as they could do, and who are going to have the feeling that, why should we go all out if the US isn't doing anything?"

"... If Trump is re-elected I think that will continue. And to some extent, the distress will internationally increase in a more than linear way."

- Is there any hope that the United States will reach its emission-reducing goals set by Obama through action taken by its states and cities? -

STERN: "The effort at the subnational level absolutely cannot make up for what happens at the national level."

"On the other hand... there's 25 states trying to take strong action. If you did not have progressive governors trying to do good things in those states, the emissions of the US as a national entity would be higher."

Take climate action at ECB, academics urge Lagarde
Frankfurt Am Main (AFP) Nov 28, 2019 - The European Central Bank should take "concrete action" to help tackle the climate crisis, more than 160 academics and civil society groups said in a letter to new ECB chief Christine Lagarde.

"The most powerful financial institution in Europe cannot just sit passively as we witness a growing environmental crisis," the letter said, urging Lagarde to ditch fossil fuel-linked investments.

"Without any further delay, the ECB should commit to gradually eliminating carbon-intensive assets from its portfolios, starting with immediate divestment from coal-related assets."

Among the 164 signatories were campaign groups Greenpeace and 350.org, the charity Caritas France, former Dutch environment minister Jacqueline Cramer and Britain's ex-Financial Services Authority chairman Adair Turner.

Lagarde took the reins at the ECB at the start of November pledging a stronger focus on climate change risks and environmental protection.

But she immediately ran into opposition from Germany's powerful Bundesbank central bank chief Jens Weidmann who said he was critical about "calls for a green monetary policy".

Preferentially targeting "green" bonds for asset purchases by the ECB would violate the ECB's principle of "market neutrality", he argued.

But writers of the letter urged Lagarde, the bank's first female president, to push back against "resistance from those who think central banks should leave climate policies to others".

They said it was "shocking" that the ECB was still buying assets from companies in carbon-intensive and fossil fuel-related industries as part of its huge bond-purchasing programme to boost economic growth.

The Frankfurt institution should show "ingenuity" and redesign the scheme to support investments that contribute to the green transition, the letter said.

The public appeal comes ahead of a UN summit on the climate crisis in Madrid next week, amid growing alarm about global warming.

In a symbolic move on Thursday, the European Parliament declared "a climate and environment emergency".

The European Investment Bank, the lending arm of the European Union, announced earlier this month it would end all fossil fuel financing from 2022 and prioritise lending to clean energy projects.

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US, EU 'owe half the cost' of repairing climate damage
Paris (AFP) Nov 25, 2019
The United States and Europe bear more than half the cost of repairing the damage already wrought by climate change, a coalition of environmental groups said Monday. Based on their historic greenhouse gas emissions, the US and EU should be held jointly responsible for 54 percent of funding owed to developing nations already dealing with extreme flooding, droughts and megastorms rendered more frequent and intense by global warming, the groups said. A week ahead of a UN climate summit in Madrid ... read more