The United States of America longingly intends to make the NATO and other allied nations pay for the American security umbrella and the attendant concerns of climate. Still, the urge and the penchant for “Regally Regulating” the New World Order in an age of multi-polarity and multiple power centers come with a cost. America is at risk of being disparaged and lampooned as a messiah forcing its “do-gooder instincts and philanthropy” at the litany of nation states, especially after the deemed exit of the nation from the Paris Climate Change Accord.
The million dollar question is: can the world live up and match the footsteps of President Donald Trump as he “Trumps up” the ante for the rollercoaster ride with the renewed vigour of American leadershipIJ That’s why it needs to be investigated his closing the “Fortress’ Gates” with his anti-immigration policy (which was always in the offing with the previous Administrations), his interventions in the Korean Peninsula, the attitude in the South China Sea, along with mollycoddling of Taiwan. Thus, a great trail of events-filled global politics is on the offing with the resurfacing of a “New World Order Interventionism” of America, but with an all-encompassing amalgamative zeal. The above written policy prescriptions should have been the idle staple fare but President Trump has thrown an isolationist streak in the mix of foreign policy.
The clarion call President Trump has given to the larger masses and the international community by walking out of the Paris Climate Accord is a kind of interventionism which reeks of a sequestration and isolation (withdrawal) from the global high seat of negotiations and power. Trump has also sought a new injunction from one of the Circuit Courts in the US, wherein, the limitations on the immigration ban on seven Muslim nations have been asked to be rescinded. Thus, the clarion call has received a new well-defined byte: “In representing the people of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” which is something he echoed in the city of Pittsburgh which has seen the rise and fall of the industrial rust and coal belt. It is not sheer populism that we are referring to here, but, the idiom of American reflexivism and progression into a novae world order as President Trump comprehends it to be. Still, how can the American dictum of the American dream and the notion of “America First” be achieved by the American exit from the Climate Change Accord remains to be seen in a functional manner.
It has been reported by a national daily, “Carbon reduction targets that the US set under the Paris Accord were aimed at reducing emissions by 26-28 per cent in a decade. The US has stopped contributing to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) set up under the Paris Climate Agreement to support developing nations meet their requirements. The Obama Administration had committed $ 3 billion for the fund, out of which only a quantum of $1 billion has been transferred to the Green Climate Fund.” This can be perceived as a decision to mark out the recalcitrant strain of the American President and the new establishment. Now, the responsibility to meander across the slew of climate action negotiations lies with the European Union under the leadership of nations such as Germany, Italy, and France; with China and India too adhering to the way of these nations to spawn a climate proactive platform in order to reinvent the idea of Collective Climate Action, once America turns truant. The multipolar world has to adhere to the dictum of “common but differentiated responsibilities” with nearly all the Sustainable Development Goals being linked up with the notion of climate change and Food security.
The American decision to exit the Paris Accord might be an offering in disguise as some of the observers have pointed out. Much worse might have happened with the US remaining in the Pact’s frame. This might have gone down with the some of the developing nations in such a manner that some of them might have walked out of the Paris Climate Agreement. This is a far gone possibility and an exercise to place the entire blame on the American negotiating side. President Trump too has called for a renegotiation of the Paris Climate Agreement, which none of the developing nations have agreed to.
The US being the ideational “Regulator High seat” of the global polity, trade and commerce and climate themes, Trump could have done well to stay put in the Paris Agreement. The historical theme of the Paris plan would involve that around 195 nations signed the accord in December, 2015 while it was ratified in December 2016, but when the shove had to come to a push, then at that crucial juncture, Trump decided to move out of the crucial accord.
Some of the observers are also calling it as the great climate change denial. According to a research exercise, Trump has tweeted climate change skepticism 115 times. A few of the tweets stands out. It runs like this in 2012, “It’s extremely cold in NY and NJ, not good for flood victims. Where is global warmingIJ” Thus, the stylistic and personalised negation of the globally accepted and bandied about concerns and phenomenon, remains a quintessential hallmark of the Trumped up American dream. That’s vintage Trump for you! The flamboyant American President has always stressed the indigenousness of development and the Truslowian “American Dream”. He does not care so much about the ideals of Neo-Wilsonianism and the “American idea’” as championed by the likes of Dean Acheson. In another 2012 tweet, Trump, as a realtor then, contended, “We can’t destroy the competitiveness of our factories in order to prepare for nonexistent global warming. China is thrilled with us.” Thus, the Pittsburgh factor instills a policy incline which might be perceived as an anti-globalisation and anti-regime tilt which more or less leaves the climate change regime in a strategic lurch.
It’s necessary to transform the way the commoners think about development, civilisation and environment. In one reading of the scenario, it can be contended that one aspect of the climate change debate is about the disparagement brought out by the ides of non-industrial and developing nations. This argument might be serving the wrong side as America is also responsible for the pollution which ensues in the larger environmental vortex. Still, the assertion can be somewhere between the twin ideals of changing the domestic consumption and energy consumption patterns in the US and accepting the moral responsibility to delve inside the rubric of climate change dysfunction in the “Third World.” Historically looking too, because of domestic developmental and economic concerns, the Americans have not been clear about the other agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol. The US is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol but has not ratified the much deliberated upon Protocol; and Canada, too, moved away from the Protocol despite its glittering role in other human security paradigms. America accounts for 36.1 per cent of the 1990 emission levels of Annex I nations. It was accepted that the US would cut down its disturbing emissions by an average of 7 per cent below 1990 levels. One methodology for the US could have been to contain the polluting corporates. The Americans called it “economically irresponsible” and thus paved the way for a separate American Climate Change policy paradigm. Still, positing the leadership role of the US in the climate change negotiations, Washington Post contended that the US ought to lead with confidence as GOP can rethink the entire Trump decision and look into some market-based solutions to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Granted, protectionism is the order of the day for GOP, but how can a “total screech of a separation” from the Paris Accord be tenable for AmericaIJ
(The writer is Faculty, International Relations and International organisations, Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi)