How Much Money Was Spent On The Paris Climate Agreement

Trump made ii claims nigh the Paris Agreement, a global accordance aimed at addressing climatic change, that require context:

• Trump said that the U.S. "pays billions of dollars" for the Paris Agreement, simply China, Russia and India accept paid "aught." The U.S. has pledged $3 billion, but so far has paid $1 billion. The agreement requires developed countries, such as the U.Southward., to help developing countries, including China and India, with mitigating climate modify. Russian federation has not ratified the agreement.
• He said that "the agreement could ultimately compress America's GDP by $two.v trillion over a 10-year menstruation ." Simply that guess is over 20 years, not 10, and it comes from a conservative think tank. Some other analysis described the potential economic bear upon as "pocket-sized" and the toll of delaying action as "high."

Trump fabricated his claims at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on his 100th twenty-four hours in function, Apr 29.

Trump, Apr 29: Our government rushed to bring together international agreements where the United States pays the costs and bears the burdens while other countries go the benefit and pay nothing. This includes deals like the one-sided Paris climate accord, where the United States pays billions of dollars while China, Russia and India have contributed and volition contribute nil. Does that remind y'all of the Iran bargain? How about that beauty, right? On top of all of that, it'due south estimated that total compliance with the agreement could ultimately compress America's Gross domestic product by $2.5 trillion over a 10-year menses. That means factories and plants closing all over our country. Here nosotros go again. Not with me, folks. Those are the facts, whether we like them or non.

The Paris Agreement entered into force on Nov. 4, 2016. It primarily aims to go on global average temperature "well below two°C above pre-industrial levels," but preferably "to limit the temperature increase to 1.five°C" higher up pre-industrial levels. The planet has warmed almost 1 degree Celsius already, according to NASA.

U.S. 'Pays Billions' for Paris Agreement?

The Paris Agreement builds upon the United nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a treaty which entered into forcefulness in March 1994. With 197 countries taking part in the UNFCCC, it has "almost-universal membership" beyond the globe.

The main aim of the UNFCCC is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations "at a level that would foreclose dangerous anthropogenic (man induced) interference with the climate system," a task that "should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to conform naturally to climatic change, to ensure that food product is not threatened, and to enable economical development to continue in a sustainable manner."

Industrialized countries, which the UNFCCC calls Annex I countries, are expected to do the most to cut emissions because "they are the source of most past and electric current greenhouse gas emissions," co-ordinate to the UNFCCC. Annex I countries include the U.Due south. and Russia.

Nether the UNFCCC, industrialized countries are also expected to help fund climatic change initiatives in developing countries, or Non Annex I countries, which include Mainland china and India. The Paris Agreement itself follows much of the same logic, and it uses funding mechanisms set up under the UNFCCC.

Those funding mechanisms include grants and loans managed by the Gef, which funds climate initiatives too equally projects related to other ecology issues, such as biodiversity, forests and chemic waste.

Countries could also contribute funds to the Dark-green Climate Fund, a separate programme for the transfer of funds from industrialized to developing countries. So far, this fund has backed 43 projects that help developing countries mitigate and conform to climate change, such equally projects to improve their renewable energy sectors.

To "pay" for the Paris Agreement, countries would contribute coin to the above funds, in addition to spending money to gainsay climate modify within their own borders.

But when we asked the White House for support for Trump'south claim that the U.S. "pays billions of dollars" for the Paris Agreement while China, Russian federation and Bharat have paid and will pay "nothing," White Firm spokesman Steven Cheung specifically referred us to the Dark-green Climate Fund.

The U.S. has promised to contribute $3 billion to this fund, merely as of March iii it has contributed only $1 billion. The fund's website states that the U.S. contribution is "[due south]ubject to the availability of funds."

Even if the U.South. does provide $three billion to this fund, it however wouldn't have contributed the most on a per-capita basis. Sweden has already contributed $581 1000000, which is about $60 per person — the largest per-capita contribution of any country. And Luxembourg has pledged, simply not fully contributed, nigh $94 per person, which would make it the largest. In fact, the U.S. ranked 11th in its pledged contribution per capita, after a number of European countries and Japan.

Meanwhile, Red china and Republic of india haven't contributed to the Green Climate Fund. Of the 43 governments that have pledged money to the fund, only nine stand for developing countries, the fund's website says.

Russian federation hasn't contributed whatsoever funds either, but it also hasn't ratified the Paris Understanding or submitted an outline of what actions information technology will take to play a role in achieving the accord'due south chief aim, namely, to keep global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius to a higher place pre-industrial levels. This outline, what the UNFCCC calls a country'south "nationally determined contribution," might include deportment such as increasing its share of renewable energy or quantifying how much information technology volition cut emissions overall. The U.South., for example, has pledged to cut emissions to 26 percent to 28 percent below its 2005 level by 2025.

Prc, India, Russia and the U.S. were all donors in the latest funding cycle for the Global Surroundings Facility. Out of a full of $four.43 billion for the 2014 to 2018 cycle, U.S. funds made upwards 14.7 percent, or just over $651 million; China contributed 0.54 percent, or most $24 million; Russia gave 0.4 percent, or $17.7 one thousand thousand; and Republic of india provided 0.32 per centum, or just over $14 million. The U.South. contributed the 2nd near overall, topped by Japan, which contributed 16.34 pct, or almost $724 meg.

It'south also important to mention that, per capita, the U.S. emitted more than greenhouse gases than China and India combined in 2015, as we've written previously.

Each person living in the Usa contributed xvi.07 tons to the land's total on average, while each person living in Communist china and India contributed 7.73 and 1.87 tons on average, respectively. However, Communist china still emits the well-nigh in full tons because its population is about 1.4 billion people, while near 325 million alive in the United states of america. Russia, on the other paw, emitted 12.27 tons per person on average in 2015, or the 5th near in total tons, after China, the U.Southward., the European Union and India.

Meaning Economical Harm?

To support Trump's claim that "full compliance with the agreement could ultimately shrink America's Gdp by $two.five trillion over a 10-year period," Cheung, the White House spokesman, pointed united states of america to a March commentary slice on the Heritage Foundation's website. That referred to work originally done by Heritage Foundation senior statistician Kevin D. Dayaratna and others in an April 2016 report. The Heritage Foundation'southward mission is to "codify and promote conservative public policies."

Dayaratna and his group concluded that the Paris Agreement "will upshot in over $two.5 trillion in lost Gross domestic product by 2035," which would be a 20-twelvemonth menses, non a 10-year menstruum, as Trump said. Gross domestic product, or gross domestic production, is a measure out of a state'southward economical output.

We asked Roberton C. Williams III, a resource economist at the Academy of Maryland and a senior fellow and director of academic programs at the economic analysis group Resources for the Time to come, to review the Heritage Foundation's report. He called the $2.five trillion effigy a "reasonable estimate," given the numbers and methodology used in the report, but said it was "expressed in a misleading style."

The standard, he said, is to express lost GDP as a per centum of total GDP. Then the foundation'south total amount — $2.5 trillion in lost GDP by 2035 — would be equivalent to a 0.55 pct decrease on boilerplate in the total Gross domestic product per year, he calculated. Williams too emphasized that the annual 0.55 pct reduction in total Gdp is not to exist dislocated with a 0.55 percent drib in the realGDP growth rate, which was ane.6 percentage in 2016. The total U.South. Gross domestic product was $xviii.6 trillion in 2016.

To guess the effect of the Paris Understanding on U.S. Gross domestic product, Dayaratna and his colleagues at the Heritage Foundation plugged a carbon taxation rate — which started at $36 (in 2007 dollars) in 2015 and increased 3 percentage each twelvemonth thereafter — into what they chosen the "Heritage Energy Model." This model, the authors say, is a "clone" of the National Energy Model System used by the federal Free energy Information Administration.

A carbon tax "directly sets a cost on carbon by defining a tax rate on greenhouse gas emissions or – more than normally – on the carbon content of fossil fuels," writes the World Bank. The specific carbon tax charge per unit the Heritage Foundation authors used comes from the Environmental Protection Agency's gauge for the social cost of carbon, which takes into consideration "long-term impairment washed by a ton of carbon dioxide," including changes in agronomical productivity, man health and property damage.

Dayaratna and his colleagues say in their study: "Modeling tax changes equally a substitute for quantifying the economical touch on of regulatory proposals is a widely accepted practice." Williams confirmed that this is in fact the instance.

Williams told us economists consider multiple factors when choosing what specific carbon tax rate to apply when estimating economic furnishings. Economists might use what he called a "politically feasible" rate based on a carbon taxation already proposed by a pol. They might as well use a carbon tax rate associated with the social cost of carbon for a detail country or region, as the Heritage Foundation authors did. Or economists might utilise a carbon tax rate that would be needed to come across a specific emissions target.

When information technology comes to the Paris Agreement, Williams said going the 3rd route makes the about sense; that is, calculating what carbon tax rate would be needed for the U.South. to run into its pledged emissions target of 26 percent to 28 percentage below its 2005 level by 2025. In fact, Williams pointed usa to a November 2016 report by Resources for the Future that did exactly that.

Yunguang Chen and Marc A.C. Hafstead, both fellows at the organisation, found that a constant carbon revenue enhancement of $21.22 (in 2013 dollars) starting in 2017 would allow the U.S. to run across its Paris Agreement target past 2025. The U.S. could alternatively utilise a carbon tax rate starting at $16.87 in 2017 and rising at 3 percent per year to meet its target. This, and similar carbon revenue enhancement rates, would reduce the real Gross domestic product from 2017 to 2025 past between just nether 0.10 pct and 0.35 percent per year, depending on how the revenue from the taxes are used and depending on the year. (See figure four.) Those figures are lower than the equivalent 0.55 percent per yr decrease in real Gdp from the Heritage report.

The authors conclude that "the size of the 2025 carbon taxes and their respective economic costs are modest." They also say that "the price of delaying the implementation of a carbon tax is high."

"Delaying implementation until 2020 raises the costs of using an economic system-broad carbon taxation to run across the 2025 targets by 12 percent relative to implementing the policy in 2017," the report says. "Delaying until 2023 increases the costs relative to 2017 by over 29 percent."

Geoffrey Heal, a resources and environmental economist at Columbia University, told us the cost of doing goose egg would be "very expensive."

"The Paris agreement will cost niggling or nil and allowing climatic change to proceed would be very expensive indeed," Heal said, calculation that "staying in Paris does not fully foreclose climate change only information technology's a skillful starting time."

Editor'southward Note: SciCheck is made possible past a grant from the Stanton Foundation.

Correction, June 7: This article originally said the U.S. had contributed $500 one thousand thousand to the Greenish Climate Fund. That'southward wrong. The U.S. has contributed $1 billion.

Source: https://www.factcheck.org/2017/05/trump-paris-agreement/

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