US exit from the Paris Agreement: Kyoto revisited?
The United States' recent decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement (unless it can re-engage on more favourable terms) has rattled international consensus on the need for cooperation to avoid dangerous climate change. Yet it remained contested whether the overall effects of the US decision on global climate policy will be good, bad or largely indifferent.
To help tease out the likely implications of the decision, Jonathan Pickering will compare and contrast US non-participation in the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. Jonathan will focus on four key areas that may condition the influence of US treaty decisions on international climate policy:
- Global momentum on climate change mitigation
- The timing and circumstances of the US decision to exit
- The possibility of US non-participation giving rise to alternative forms of international collaboration on climate policy
- The influence of treaty design on countries' incentives to participate and comply
Jonathan Pickering is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Canberra. He is currently working on an ARC-funded project entitled 'Deliberating in the Anthropocene' (2015-19). He is an Associate of the ANU Climate Change Institute and a Visiting Fellow at the ANU Development Policy Centre.