The world’s second-greatest producer of greenhouse gas emissions (and No.1 historically) has become the only nation on the planet that rejects the Paris Climate Accord. That happened Tuesday when Syrian delegates to the ongoing climate conference in Bonn announced their nation would join the accord. Pr*@%!^#t Donald Trump announced in June that the United States would be withdrawing from the accord even though it cannot formally abandon it until Nov. 4, 2020.
The 195 nations that signed the accord in 2015 agreed to work cooperatively to keep the Earth from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with an aspiration of keeping it below 1.5 degrees Celsius. There is a widespread view among climate hawks that the accord doesn’t go far enough. But even most critics support it because it’s the only thing we’ve got. The former argument is why Nicaragua originally refused to join. The latter is why government leaders there changed their minds and decided last month to sign the accord.
Responding to the Syrian move, Eric Holthaus at Grist lays it out:
That fact is so shocking it’s worth repeating: The United States is now the only nation on Earth not on board with working together to solve climate change. Even rogue regimes like Syria and North Korea have taken time out from plotting mass murder to acknowledge the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A key element of state efforts to meet the goals of the Paris Accord is the provision of renewable portfolio standards. Twenty-nine states have passed these mandates requiring that utilities generate or purchase a certain percentage of electricity from renewable sources by a certain date. For example, California’s and New York’s RPS require that 50 percent of the state’s electricity be generated from wind, solar, and geothermal sources by 2030. South Carolina has set a 2 percent mandate for 2021 and Virginia has set 15 percent by 2025.
An assessment published in September shows that the benefits from these renewable portfolio standards outweigh the costs in every instance.
While the RPS mandates have an impact on emissions, they alone can’t meet the Paris Accord’s goals. For one thing, several states (mostly in the South) have no mandates whatsoever, and in several other states, the mandates are minuscule or out of date.
Getting a national RPS mandate ought to be on the Democrats’ priority list as an item for immediate consideration the minute they are again in power in Congress and the White House. The idea that they—and we—should wait until that happens before putting forth ideas of this nature has it backward. Right now we obviously don’t have the political clout to turn this idea into federal law. But a crucial aspect of obtaining the clout is letting voters know ahead of time what we will we do when we get it.