Republican politics — especially the party’s growing separation from science-based reality — remain a major obstacle to a global consensus on climate change, but the Paris agreement shows that the world is capable of overcoming these “climate deniers,” as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar describes.
By Paul R. Pillar
The principal significance of the Paris agreement on retarding climate change is its universality: the concurrence of all the nations in the world regarding the need for action to slow and then reverse the man-made heating of the planet.
Continued differences of view based on differences of economic and developmental status have taken a back seat, more than they ever have before, to enlistment in the common cause to protect the planet’s livability. The agreement will function as a bright reference point affirming not only that the fact of man-made climate change is undeniable but also that the importance of doing something about it is undeniable as well.
Image of Planet Earth taken from Apollo 17
The credit for an achievement with worldwide buy-in must be shared very broadly, but several credit-worthy contributions stand out. One is that of France, the host of the conference, and its political leaders and diplomats. At a time when that country could have been dwelling on the recent terrorist attacks in its capital, it instead responded with focus and skill to produce an achievement in the finest tradition of French diplomacy.
Another pre-conference development of major importance was the redirection of climate policy of China – the world’s single biggest emitter of carbon dioxide – under Xi Jinping, especially as reflected in China’s accord with the United States on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
Another major contribution was that of the President of the United States, the country that is the second-biggest emitter of CO2. Barack Obama’s leadership on the issue has contrasted starkly with the all-too-prevalent tendency among politicians in his own country to exploit whatever polls show to be scaring people at the moment.
Or as Washington Post reporter Steven Mufson aptly put it, the Paris conference “owed much of its success to…