Climate Change
David G. Victor speaks on December 9, 2019 at COP 25 in Madrid, Spain, on the launch of a new report, “Accelerating the Low Carbon Transition: The case for strong, more targeted and coordinated international action.”
[On US sub-national climate action] The effort at the subnational level absolutely cannot make up for what happens at the national level. On the other hand... there's 25 states trying to take strong action. If you did not have progressive governors trying to do good things in those states, the emissions of the US as a national entity would be higher.
[On COP 25, the UN climate negotiations in Madrid, Spain] The US, whether it was (former US president George W) Bush or Obama, or even during this period of the Trump administration, was obviously not a supporter of the kind of hard bifurcation of the old-fashioned firewall that was embodied by the Kyoto agreement (signed in 1997). We were not going to agree to look to anything which said, here's a set of legally binding obligations for developed countries, but nothing for developing countries. That was Kyoto... The negotiators could show up to negotiations during the Trump administration and still be free to continue to advance that type of position.
[On the future of the Paris Agreement and the effects of US withdrawal] The damage is that you just inevitably have countries who are not going to do as much as they could do, and who are going to have the feeling that, why should we go all out if the US isn't doing anything?... If Trump is re-elected I think that will continue. And to some extent, the distress will internationally increase in a more than linear way.
