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Blow to the international credibility of the US in the climate challenge

2022-07-01T10:54:46.262Z


The UN considers the Supreme Court ruling "a setback in the fight" against global warming and progressive judges see it as "terrifying"


Oil and gas extraction infrastructures with the hydraulic fracturing technique in Loveland, Colorado (USA). Helen H. Richardson (EL PAÍS)

“We are still inside” (

We are still in

, in English).

It was the message that the Democrats of the United States, with the president of Congress at the head, Nancy Pelosi, repeated in 2019 through the pavilions of Ifema, in Madrid.

At the end of that year, when Donald Trump was still in the White House, the Spanish capital hosted the UN climate summit.

And the Democrats made an effort to explain that, despite Trump – who came to take his country out of the Paris Agreement – ​​within the US there were local and state governments committed to the fight against climate change.

“We are back”, the Democrats repeated from 2021 after managing to evict Trump from power and re-integrate the United States into the Paris Agreement and the global climate negotiation.

But the Supreme Court ruling that now limits the margin of action of the federal government and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to restrict greenhouse gas emissions is a new blow to the credibility of the United States in the international fight against The warm-up.

As "a setback" in the "fight against climate change" a UN spokeswoman has defined the ruling, which "makes it difficult to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement."

The Joe Biden Administration returned to the fight against the climate crisis with declared aspirations to lead this international battle and in April 2021 organized a summit.

Biden surrounded himself virtually with 40 world leaders —including the Russian Vladimir Putin and the Chinese Xi Jinping— and announced an ambitious goal: the US would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52% in 2030 compared to the levels of 2005. The United States was thus placed in the group of the most ambitious powers, almost on a par with the European Union.

However, the blemish on the reliability of the US - the main historical responsible for warming,

This commitment to cut emissions by up to 52% in 2030 was presented by Biden to the United Nations in the framework of the Paris Agreement, signed in 2015. That pact went ahead thanks in large part to the involvement of former President Barack Obama, but the design and The article of the agreement —which does not establish specific cuts to the signatories, but rather each country sets its own goals— was adapted to the needs of the United States. The Paris text was cleaned of binding formulas to prevent the Democrats from having problems again for the ratification of the Paris Agreement within their country.

Because there was already a history of a climate fright.

It happened with the pact that preceded Paris: the Kyoto Protocol.

The treaty, which obliged developed countries to reduce their emissions, was not finally ratified by the Administration of the Republican George W. Bush in 2001. Something that did not change with the following governments.

Biden seemed determined to change things, but his politics are now lame.

The problem is that it is necessary to act quickly, as science warns, and it will not be possible.

In their dissenting opinion, the three progressive judges who have opposed the ruling reason that one of the main reasons why Congress makes large delegations is so that a body such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) "can respond, adequately and proportionally, to the new and great challenges”.

“Congress knows what it doesn't know and can't know when it writes a law;

therefore, it gives an expert agency the power to address problems—even the biggest ones—as they arise.

That is what Congress did”, the three judges agree, assuring that the sentence “deprives the EPA of the necessary power —and the one granted— to curb the emission of greenhouse gases”.

The six conservative justices maintain that a clear, express and concrete delegation from Congress is needed for the EPA to impose limits on emissions.

Biden does not have a majority in Congress to push through new restrictive legislation.

"The court today prevents the action of an agency authorized by Congress to curb emissions," the judges continue.

“The court names itself, rather than Congress or the expert agency, as responsible for climate policy.

I can't think of much scarier things.

I respectfully dissent, ”writes Judge Elena Kagan in her dissenting opinion, which is part of the 89-page sentence and is also signed by Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

Second world emitter

Since the Kyoto ratification fiasco at the beginning of this decade, China has had time to become the number one emitter of greenhouse gases.

But the US is still second.

Both powers expel about 40% of all these gases in the world.

If the United States' problem is one of credibility and the impossibility of implementing instruments to fulfill ambitious promises, China's is one of objectives.

To date, the Asian power has only set itself to reach its peak emissions in 2030 and from then on it will reduce them.

China continues to defend that there are common but differentiated responsibilities, referring to the fact that developed countries must do more than the rest.

And at each climate summit, their negotiators emphasize that they comply with what they promise, a veiled rebuke to the United States and its fickle commitment against global warming.

29% of greenhouse gases in the US currently come from transportation.

It is followed by electricity generation (25%) and industry (23%).

To deliver on his climate promises, Biden should put measures in place in all of these sectors.

But many of the climate policies he has tried to develop have run up against Congress or the courts, like now.

More information

Supreme Court undermines US fight against climate change

"The judiciary and the legislature are seriously hampering Joe Biden's ability to get the job done on climate," Richard Lazarus, professor of environmental law at Harvard University, summed up yesterday in statements to

The New York Times .

.

This new blow from the Supreme Court comes at a very delicate moment for the climate fight in which the rise in prices of fossil fuels and the war in Ukraine has made many powers move even further away from their climate commitments.

The last climate summit, held in November in the Scottish city of Glasgow, ended with a call to reduce public aid for fossil fuels.

But most countries are now increasing these subsidies in the face of rising gasoline and diesel prices.

And, after their last meeting, the members of the G-7 released a public statement defending "publicly supported investment in the gas sector" as a "temporary" response to restrictions on the arrival of Russian gas.

That summit also resulted in a commitment from more than a hundred countries to reduce methane emissions by 30% by the end of this decade.

That promise was led by the European Union and by Biden, and for its application in the United States —which largely affects the oil, gas and coal industry— the EPA whose wings have now been clipped was an essential instrument.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-07-01

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