October 8, 2015

Senator Corker Questions Secretary Kerry over Paris Climate Deal

Stephen Eule

In a September 22 letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker is demanding the Obama Administrations disclose its plans for the new climate change agreement that will be hashed out in Paris in December.

The letter notes that under the Durban Platform, the Paris meeting is expected to result in a “a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties.” The Senator then asks whether the Administration intends to treat the news accord as a “treaty, with formal transmittal to the Senate for its advice and consent?” That’s a good question.

The Paris confab will be the 21st annual meeting of the UN Framework Conventional on Climate Change. These Conference of the Parties—or COPs, as they are more commonly known—usually produce “decisions” that no one could reasonably argue have any legal force. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, essentially an amendment to the UNFCCC, was clearly a treaty that would have created legally binding international obligations for the U.S. Thus, even though the Clinton Administration signed it, that fact that it was never submitted to the Senate for ratification means it has no legal force in the United States.

So we’re sure to see the Obama administration trying to have it both ways by coming up with a deal that is more than a COP decisions but less that a treaty, thus avoiding the need for the Senate’s advice and consent.

Senator Corker appears to be anticipating this himself.  In his letter, he asks Secretary Kerry to explain why, if the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol were considered treaties, the Paris agreement—something potentially much more consequential that Kyoto Protocol ever was—shouldn’t be. That’s another good question.

Congress in general, and the Senate in particular, is beginning to wake up to the consequences of a new international climate deal. Earlier, this year, we reported on a letter 11 senators on the Environmental and Public Works Committee wrote to the President pressing for answers on his international emissions reduction pledge.

We welcome these Senate inquiries. Based on what we’ve seen to date, large emerging economies have shown very little interest in reducing emissions in any meaningful way (for example, see our post on China’s empty emissions pledge).  What’s on the table for most is certainly nothing coming close to what the Administration is proposing for the United States, which would be extraordinarily costly to achieve. An agreement locking such disparities in emissions pledges into place would jeopardize America’s energy advantage and leak U.S. industries, their jobs, and their emissions overseas. As a result, the U.S. will see no environmental gain for a great deal of economic pain. 

Back in 1997, the Clinton Administration signed the Kyoto Protocol over the objections of the Senate knowing full well that it would never be ratified. The Obama Administration looks ready to repeat the mistake of signing onto a lopsided deal and making promises future presidents and congresses may neither be willing nor able to keep. As the late Yogi Berra once aid, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”