US: Prefers core Paris pact to be on mitigation or emission cuts

Works closely with partners in the Umbrella Group - Australia, Japan, Canada and others

Position & expectations from the Paris package

• The country has dictated the terms of the Paris agreement over the years of negotiation since 2007. It has so far got much of what it wants.

• The US has a rock-solid team of old hands and a large pool of dedicated experts in the field as negotiators.

• It wants a Paris agreement that President Barack Obama can approve by executive fiat back home, without the need for an almost impossible approval from the Republican-dominated US Senate.

• Its preferences shape the nature of the Paris agreement, if the world wants to keep its on board, unlike in the case of the Kyoto Protocol.

• The country has taken a relatively small pledge to reduce emissions in the near future (by 2025). It prefers to postpone action to long term (2050-70).

• It needs to show its domestic audience that all countries, including the key emerging economies, are taking action — it is not just the developed countries, and differentiation between these has been breached or collapsed entirely.

• It prefers the core Paris agreement to be on mitigation or reducing emissions — everything else is seen as a less onerous decision

• President Obama cannot agree to a pact where the emission targets are legally binding. He would have to get an impossible approval from a republican-dominated US Senate if that happens.

• The country wants uniform rules to monitor and verify countries’ emission reduction pledges — and unlike now, no differentiation

Stand on finance

• The US wants no hard numbers or commitments in the core Paris agreement.

• It wants countries to improve their investment regimes to permit easier flow of green tech, and emerging economies like India and China to also contribute to global climate finance pool. It does not want a linkage between actions of developing countries and the funds it provides to fight climate change.

• The US will not permit any talk of easing or buying out intellectual property rights in green tech for poor countries.

• It will not let historical emissions be accounted for while apportioning responsibility for future actions by countries.

• It will not let the issue of ‘loss and damage’ be deeply embedded in the core agreement, especially if it refers to compensation for damage caused in poor countries.

 
Stance-defining statement

“This is a kind of unified field theory of solving climate change
— get the treaty right; the treaty dictates national action; and the
problem gets solved. This is entirely logical. It makes perfect sense
on paper. The trouble is, it ignores the classic lesson that politics, including international politics, is the art of the possible”

Todd Stern

US Special Envoy on Climate Change
(On having a top-down approach to the global climate pact)