The US Can't Leave The Paris Climate Deal Until 2020 (nytimes.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the New York Times: Last week, President Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. But it will take more than one speech to pull out: Under the rules of the deal, which the White House says it will follow, the earliest any country can leave is November 4, 2020. That means the United States will remain a party to the accord for nearly all of Mr. Trump's current term... Nov. 4, 2019 is the earliest date that the United States can submit a written notice to the United Nations that it is withdrawing from the Paris deal -- exactly three years after it came into force. As soon as that happens, the United States can leave the accord in exactly one year... If a new president enters the White House on Jan. 20, 2021, he or she could easily submit a written notice to the United Nations that the United States would like to rejoin the Paris accord. Within 30 days, the United States could re-enter the agreement and submit a new pledge for how the country plans to tackle climate change.
The article also acknowledges "a growing coalition of states, cities and companies that are pledging to do as much as they can to meet the United States' climate goals on their own."

Comments

It's not legally binding

[rossz]

Since the Paris deal was never submitted to the Senate for confirmation, it is not a legally binding treaty, only a verbal agreement by Obama.

I am not arguing for or against the climate deal, just pointing out a simple fact of US law.

Citation: US Constitution Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, includes the Treaty Clause, which empowers the president of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements, which must be confirmed by the Senate, between the United States and other countries, which become treaties between the United ..

Re:It's not legally binding

[AthanasiusKircher]

The Paris Accord was a 2015 modification to that Treaty. Modification to the treaty or accord requires Senate approval. No such approval was obtained. As such, the USA was never part of the Paris Accord.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the whole point of the UNFCCC treaty was to create a "framework" (it's in the name) for future climate agreements.

The Paris Agreement was specifically designed to be "voluntary" in many of its requirements to avoid the legal issues that plagued the Kyoto Accord back in the 1990s. The Kyoto Accord *did* place legally binding restrictions on climate actions to be taken by the U.S., and as such, it required Senate confirmation (where it was rejected).

Executive Agreements do not necessarily require reconfirmation of the Senate when they are implementing a treaty already approved by the Senate. Specifically, if they do not modify existing domestic laws, executive agreements generally don't require Senate confirmation. (Note that Executive Agreements are not uncommon -- the U.S. has engaged in over 18,000 of them, some dating back to the early days of the country, compared to only a bit over 1,000 treaties.) As I understand it, the Obama administration intended to enforce its contribution to the agreement through existing federal statutes and regulations (like the Clean Air Act), so no changes to domestic laws would be necessary beyond what was already achieved in the UNFCCC treaty.

Note, of course, that an Executive Agreement is less binding than a treaty, so there's no question that Trump has the authority to unilaterally withdraw from it, though doing so without following the terms of withdrawal in the agreement would be a diplomatic disaster that would undermine U.S. authority in international negotiations.

Re:Woopie

[ShanghaiBill]

Let me get this straight... It's a non-binding accord (other than we can't leave until 4 Nov 2019). So nothing changes.

Correct. This is just political mastrubation.

Meanwhile, scientists and engineers are busy working on better solar panels, more efficient wind turbines, biofuels, battery tech, integrated grids, carbon sequestration, etc. Stuff that actually matters.

Nerds will save the world, not politicians.

Not even remotely true

[Okian Warrior]

Since the Paris deal was never submitted to the Senate for confirmation, it is not a legally binding treaty, only a verbal agreement by Obama.

I am not arguing for or against the climate deal, just pointing out a simple fact of US law.

Citation: US Constitution Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, includes the Treaty Clause, which empowers the president of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements, which must be confirmed by the Senate, between the United States and other countries, which become treaties between the United ..

That's not even remotely true.

The Paris deal isn't a treaty, it's an "accord". Because that's different, it can be agreed to by the president without any buy-in from the legislature. It comes under the "umbrella" treaty agreement the US has with the UN which *was* ratified by congress.

And if you disagree, note that Obama actually taught constitutional law at college, and no one disagreed with the action at the time - no one in the legislature brought the issue or the supreme court, no group in the US sued the government and pushed it to the supreme court.

I don't know where people get these ideas from. A plain-text reading of the constitution does not always convey the complexity and intricacies of the underlying law.

Re:Nerds provide the tools

[Moheeheeko]

It doesn't matter what Trump is going to do. The companies and scientists in the US that would be doing the work under the deal have unanimously said they are still going to do the work. The only difference here is that the US wont be contributing money to 3rd world countries so they can step up their game, which honestly inst that big of a deal because none of them pollute even near as close as the US, China, and India (the latter two aren't even going to start their work until after 2020 anyway).

Re:Not *entirely* symbolic

[MobyDisk]

(And the US is already one of the least polluting nation

I keep hearing that we are one of the worst, or at least the worst per-capita. But maybe that depends on how you define pollution. In regards to the Paris agreement, CO2 is the relevant pollutant. The EPA claims that we are second to China which probably matches the worst per-capita statement, since we have a way lower population than China. Wikipedia has some good charts too.

Re:Not *entirely* symbolic

[BorisAmmerlaan]

(And the US is already one of the least polluting nations

Not according to wikipedia. You're #2 in absolute emissions and #7 per capita. The U.S. produces over 14% of the world's total emissions.