Selin Publishes Article on the Paris Agreement on Climate Change
Henrik Selin, Associate Professor of International Relations and Associate Dean for Studies at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published an article in The Conversation explaining how the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change will affect prospects for avoiding the worst effects of global warming.
On November 4, 2020, the Trump administration formally notified the United Nations that it planned to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. Following this notification, Selin sought out to answer four important questions regarding the agreement: what is the process for a country to leave the Paris Agreement, what does the U.S. exit mean for curbing climate change, how many other countries have not joined the Paris Agreement, and can the U.S. rejoin the Paris Agreement?
As Selin explains, U.S. absence from the agreement will have political and practical implications on efforts to curb climate change. While it’s possible that the U.S. could still meet the commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions set by the agreement, Selin argues that additional rollbacks of relevant federal mandates are already making it harder for states to reduce fossil fuel use.
An excerpt:
Even if the United States does rejoin the Paris Agreement in the future, other countries will remember that it unilaterally left an agreement that had global support and may well believe that the U.S. could do so again in the future. America’s reputation as a reliable international partner has already suffered damage that will take a long time to repair.
The full article can be read on The Conversation‘s website.
Henrik Selin has been at Boston University since 2004 and his research and teaching focuses on global and regional politics and policy making on environment and sustainable development. He is the author of EU and Environmental Governance and Global Governance of Hazardous Chemicals: Challenges of Multilevel Management. He is also the author and co-author of more than four dozen peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters. He also serves as Associate Editor for the journal Global Environmental Politics. Learn more about him here.