4/23/2021 BIDEN CLIMATE SUMMIT IN THE NEWS WHITE HOUSE MARCH 26 2021: Today, President Biden invited 40 world leaders to the Leaders Summit on Climate he will host on April 22 and 23. The virtual Leaders Summit will be live streamed for public viewing. President Biden took action his first day in office to return the United States to the Paris Agreement. Days later, on January 27, he announced that he would soon convene a leaders summit to galvanize efforts by the major economies to tackle the climate crisis.

The Leaders Summit on Climate will underscore the urgency – and the economic benefits – of stronger climate action. It will be a key milestone on the road to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) this November in Glasgow. In recent years, scientists have underscored the need to limit planetary warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in order to stave off the worst impacts of climate change. A key goal of both the Leaders Summit and COP26 will be to catalyze efforts that keep that 1.5-degree goal within reach. The Summit will also highlight examples of how enhanced climate ambition will create good paying jobs, advance innovative technologies, and help vulnerable countries adapt to climate impacts. By the time of the Summit, the United States will announce an ambitious 2030 emissions target as its new Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement. In his invitation, the President urged leaders to use the Summit as an opportunity to outline how their countries also will contribute to stronger climate ambition.

The Summit will reconvene the U.S.-led Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, which brings together 17 countries responsible for approximately 80 percent of global emissions and global GDP. The President also invited the heads of other countries that are demonstrating strong climate leadership, are especially vulnerable to climate impacts, or are charting innovative pathways to a net-zero economy. A small number of business and civil society leaders will also participate in the Summit. Key themes of the Summit will include: Galvanizing efforts by the world’s major economies to reduce emissions during this critical decade to keep a limit to warming of 1.5 degree Celsius within reach. Mobilizing public and private sector finance to drive the net-zero transition and to help vulnerable countries cope with climate impacts. The economic benefits of climate action, with a strong emphasis on job creation, and the importance of ensuring all communities and workers benefit from the transition to a new clean energy economy.

Spurring transformational technologies that can help reduce emissions and adapt to climate change, while also creating enormous new economic opportunities and building the industries of the future.

Showcasing subnational and non-state actors that are committed to green recovery and an equitable vision for limiting warming to 1.5 degree Celsius, and are working closely with national governments to advance ambition and resilience.

Discussing opportunities to strengthen capacity to protect lives and livelihoods from the impacts of climate change, address the global security challenges posed by climate change and the impact on readiness, and address the role of nature-based solutions in achieving net zero by 2050 goals. Further details on the Summit agenda, additional participants, media access, and public viewing will be provided in the coming weeks.

The countries invited by the President to the the Summit and their percent of world emissions (source: Wikipedia) show that the gathering represents 80.89% of the world’s fossil fuel emissions and that rather high percentage indicates that if a binding climate action carbon budget is implemented by this group it will be a significant achievement in emission reduction. Currently the rate of warming is 0.014C per year on average or 1.4C per century. An 80.89% reduction in this rate will reduce the rate of warming to 0.267 per century. This will be a significant achievement.

However, the language of the discussion at this stage in its progress is less impressive. For example, the USA commits to a 50% emission reduction by 2030 with no 100% reduction target. If we assume that the target is a 50% reduction by all the countries in the summit listed below, then a 40.445% reduction in the rate of warming will reduce the current rate of warming from 1.4C per century to 0.8338C per century.

Yet, although a significant group of countries and emissions are in the equation above, the countries in the meeting and in any emission reduction agreement that may be reached, what we have in this climate action club is 40 out of 195 counrties or 20.5% of the world’s countries. Some significant countries in terms of population and size of the economy that are not included are Pakistan, The Philippines, Iran, Thailand, Myanmar, Morocco, Angola, Mozambique, Yemen, Ghana, Nepal, Madagascar, Taiwan, Srii Lanka, Romania, Algeria, Greece, Portugal, Dominican Republic, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Mongolia and a long list of other countries LINK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_(United_Nations)

In this context we note in a related post: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/05/22/climate-catch22/ , that global warming is a global issue that has only a global solution to reduce and eliminate global fossil fuel emissions. The only way to do that is to put together a binding global agreement among all countries to reduce or eliminate global fossil fuel emissions as in the Montreal Protocol. There is no oppotunity here for national climate action heroism by a subset of the global economy. This is because the the global economy is a tightly interwoven and interdependent structure of national economies that are tied together by trade, as explained in more detail in the related post linked above. What we find in that analysis is that:

THE ECONOMICS TRAP OF A NON-GLOBAL MOVEMENT TO CUT GLOBAL EMISSIONS: Although the world of humans is separated into nation states, they are connected by economics. This connection is vast and complex and involves cross border investments, stocks, bonds, monetary policy, technology, intellectual property rights, and so on and so forth but most importantly in this respect, the nations of the world are connected by trade. International trade is so important, that even though we think of our civilization in terms of the nation states, we are really one huge global economy because we are connected by trade.

THE ANOMALY OF NON-GLOBAL EMISSION REDUCTION PLANS IN THE CONTEXT OF TRADE: Because nation states are independent nations in some respects but global in terms of trade, a climate action decision by an individual nation state will not lead to global emission reduction. This is because any national climate action plan by a single nation state will increase the economic cost of production and make that nation state less competitive in international trade and hand over a cost advantage to nations that do not have a national climate action plan. The cost advantage of non-climate-action takers will cause their production and exports to rise by virtue of demand from climate action taking nations. The net result will be that economic activity {and fossil fuel emissions} will decline in climate action taking nations but with a corresponding rise in economic activity {and fossil fuel emissions} in non-climate-action taking nations. In the net there may be no emission reduction. This is the Catch-22 of national level emission reduction plans.

This means that an emission reduction contract among nations that is less than global will not reduce global emissions because any emission reduction thus achieved among a sub group of countries will be offset by increases in emissions elsewhere outside the emission reduction compact of the sub group of emission reduction countries. Therefore, any emission reduction that may be achived by a contract among the 40 countries of the Biden climate club will be offset by increases in emissions outside of this group. In the net there will be no reduction in gobal fossil fuel emissions.

The data for the failure of climate heroism at the nation state level is presented in related posts on this site.

LINK#1: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/02/23/renewable-energy-statistics/

LINK#2: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/02/25/net-zero/

LINK#3: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/09/30/cer/

As noted in the documents in LINK#2 and LINK#3 above, a specific issue in the corruption of climate action after the failure of the UN to deliver a “Montreal Protocol for Climate Change“, [LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/01/04/a-montreal-protocol-for-the-climate/ is the interpretation of reduction in fossil fuel emissions in terms of investments in carbon cycle offsets or carbon credit offsets in the carbon credits market with the view that what needs to be zero is not emissions but something called “net emissions” in which fossil fuel emissions equivalent to the carbon credits held are allowed. The flaw in this logic is presented in the documents linked by LINK#1 and LINK#2 above.

TO SUMMARIZE, THOUGH THE MEETING OF 40 NATIONS FOR A CLIMATE ACTION CONTRACT MAY SOUND ENCOURAGING FOR CLIMATE ACTION THERE IS A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF DRAMA IN THIS EVENT THAT ARE IRRELEVANT IN TERMS OF CLIMATE ACTION. THESE ARE (1) COUNTRIES SUCH AS JAMAICA, BHUTAN, AND ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA ARE IRRELEVANT IN THE CLIMATE ACTION CONTEXT. IF WE COUNT ONLY COUNTRIES WITH EMISSIONS OF 1% OF GLOBAL EMISSIONS OR GREATER, WE HAVE ABOUT 20 COUNTRIES IN THE PACT. THE INCLUSION OF THE HEAVY WEIGHTS SUCH AS USA, CHINA, AND INDIA OF COURSE YIELDS A SIGNIFICANT PERCENTAGE OF WORLD EMISSIONS REPRESENTED IN THE MEETING AT ALMOST 81%. HOWEVER, BECAUSE IT IS NOT A GLOBAL CONTRACT, THE CLIMATE HEROISM OF THIS GROUP WILL BE UNDONE BY THE ECONOMICS TRAP DESCRIBED IN LINK#1 ABOVE.

NON-GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION HEROISM IS POLITICS NOT CLIMATE ACTION.

LIST OF PARTCIPATING COUNTRIES AND THEIR 2019 EMISSIONS AS PERCENT OF GLOBAL EMISSIONS

ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA: 0%, ARGENTINA: 0.57%, AUSTRALIA: 1.08%, BANGLADESH: 0.23%, BHUTAN: 0%, BRAZIL: 1.33%, CANADA: 1.66%, CHILE: 0.24%, CHINA: 29.34%, COLOMBIA: 0.2%, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO 0.01%, DENMARK 0.09%, EURPOEAN UNION 9.57%, FRANCE 0.91%, GABON 0.02%, GERMANY 2.15%, INDIA 6.62%, INDONESIA 1.38%, ISRAEL 0.18%, ITALY 0.97%, JAMAICA 0.02%, JAPAN 3.56%, KENYA 0.05%, MARSHALL ISLANDS 0%, MEXICO 1.37%, NEW ZEALAND 0.1%, NIGERIA 0.26%, NORWAY 0.14%, POLAND 0.86%, KOREA 1.82%, RUSSIA 4.76%, SAUDI ARABIA 1.72%, SINGAPORE 0.15%, SOUTH AFRICA 1.26%, SPAIN 0.76%, TURKEY 1.16%, UNITED ARAB, EMIRATES 0.55%, UNITED KINGDOM 1.02%, USA 13.77%, VIETNAM 0.59%, TOTAL: 80.89%, (note: since many EU countries are listed, the percentage for the EU was not added).

Prime Minister Gaston Browne,
President Alberto Fernandez, Argentina
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Australia
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh
Prime Minister Lotay Tshering, Bhutan
President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada
President Sebastián Piñera, Chile
President Xi Jinping, People’s Republic of China
President Iván Duque Márquez, Colombia
President Félix Tshisekedi, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Denmark
President Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission
President Charles Michel, European Council
President Emmanuel Macron, France
President Ali Bongo Ondimba, Gabon
Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India
President Joko Widodo, Indonesia
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel
Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Italy
Prime Minister Andrew Holness, Jamaica
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Japan
President Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya
President David Kabua, Republic of the Marshall Islands
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand
President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria
Prime Minister Erna Solberg, Norway
President Andrzej Duda, Poland
President Moon Jae-in, Republic of Korea
President Vladimir Putin, The Russian Federation
King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore
President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Spain
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey
President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, United Arab Emirates
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, United Kingdom
President Nguyễn Phú Trọng, Vietnam