Askhat Rathi is right: Words have power. In his article "A single word almost wrecked the landmark Paris climate-change agreement", he explains how Secretary of State John Kerry objected to the use of the word shall in the agreement, and opted for the more lenient word should. This simple change effectively rendered the agreement as not legally binding.
This is not the first time a single word had a significant impact on a legal agreement. In fact, it took only a single comma to cost Rogers Communications a million dollars.
In an op-ed on Think Progress, Samantha Page argued that the binding clause doesn't really matter. Although there are no penalties for countries that miss their emissions targets, and no penalties to withdraw, Page is confident that countries will adhere to the agreement because failure to do so would make for pretty bad foreign relations.
I disagree.
Reducing emissions is not a simple task. It requires investments from the government that amount to billions of dollars. What would prevent a new right-wing government from slashing spending? What would prevent a Republican president from withdrawing from the agreement? In fact, Ted Cruz has already pledged to withdraw if he were elected.
Samantha Page argued that civil society will take on the role of the enforcers. If targets are not being met, "domestic constituencies will be mobilizing to force government action". While this is true, it would take years, if not decades, for public opinion to force government actions. Despite all the hard work that environmentalists have done for the past decades in the US, 50% of Americans still don't worry (or worry little) about global warming.
Breaking promises is what governments do. We don't need to go far back to see evidence of this. The previous climate-change agreement, the Kyoto accord, was actually a legally binding agreement but didn't have a penalty for withdrawal. Canada, who had a target to reduce emissions by 6%, ignored the agreement and instead increased emissions by 20%. This prompted Canada to withdraw from the Kyoto accord avoiding an estimated $14 billion payment. Canada's decision drew heavy criticism in Canada and internationally, but these bad foreign relations didn't deter the government from ignoring the targets and withdrawing from the agreement.
There's also a major risk that's often overlooked. If any of the major polluters (US, Russia, China and India) would withdraw from the agreement, there's a high risk that other countries may follow suit causing a ripple effect.
I can understand why the Obama administration didn't want a binding clause. A binding obligation would be seen as a treaty and would most likely fail in a Republican controlled Senate. But let's not be naïve. Absent any miracle, this agreement is bound to fail just like the ones before it did.
Reflecting on my analysis, it blows my mind how Republicans are not only a threat to the United States, but also a threat to the entire planet.