The Paris Climate Disaster

On December 12, 2015, nearly every nation on the planet signed the Paris Climate Agreement. The purpose of the agreement is to reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global warming. The stated goal of the Paris climate accord is to limit global temperature increases to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels by the year 2100. Scientists believe that average global temperature has already increased by 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) since the industrial revolution. Calling this effort the Paris Climate Agreement is a bit of a misnomer. There is actually not a single agreement that all of these nations have agreed to abide by. Rather, each nation makes a voluntary decision regarding how much carbon dioxide they promise to cut by the year 2030. As Bjorn Lomborg says, “The Paris Agreement itself effectively staples together all those promises.”

The agreement specifically includes language which calls for all nations “to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change.” Some nations did indeed make ambitious promises. Under the leadership of then President Barack Obama, the United States committed – by the year 2025 – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26% compared to its 2005 emissions. The European Union was perhaps even more ambitious, pledging by 2030 to cut emissions by 40% relative to 1990.

Other nations were far less ambitious. India is the third largest carbon emitting nation, accounting for 2.62 billion tons of carbon in 2019, behind China (10.17 billion tons) and the US (5.28 billion tons). Because India is an economically developing nation with a huge population of 1.37 billion people, it is expected to make a large contribution to worldwide carbon emissions throughout the remainder of the 21st century. Now India’s leaders are fully aware that they will need huge amounts of energy – largely from fossil fuels – to drive their economy forward and achieve the kind of widespread prosperity we enjoy here in the US. Unsurprisingly, India’s pledge to the Paris Climate Agreement is so weak it could hardly be considered a pledge at all. They will be able to “achieve” their pledge even though their emissions will continue to rise rapidly. India’s promise is like a 200 lb man making a New Year’s resolution to keep his weight below 250.

You can’t have any serious discussion about carbon emissions without considering China. China is by far the world’s largest carbon producer. China’s carbon emissions are the result of several factors. First, China is the world’s most populous nation with 1.4 billion people. Second, China has experienced very rapid economic growth in recent decades. Now there are plenty of troubling things about China and its communist government. But we should all celebrate the fact that China’s economic growth has succeeded in lifting over 1 billion people out of poverty. As the chart below demonstrates, in 1990 fully two-thirds of all Chinese -66.6%- were living below the extreme poverty threshold. Yet by 2015, this number had astonishingly fallen below 1%! So in the span of 25 years, China has virtually eliminated extreme poverty. This is nothing short of an economic miracle, largely attributable to greater economic freedom.

This kind of dynamic economic growth requires affordable, reliable and plentiful energy – the kind of energy that comes from fossil fuels. There is no possible way that expensive, unreliable windmills and solar panels can power the kind of economic activity necessary to lift people out of poverty and into prosperity. China’s economic miracle has been largely powered by coal. Of course, coal is a fossil fuel which comes with the cost of corresponding carbon emissions. The chart below shows how China’s carbon emissions have soared over the last three decades – from 2.42 billion tons in 1990 to 10.17 billion tons in 2019. Since the US has already undergone widespread industrialization, our carbon emissions have been relatively flat. In fact, US carbon emissions peaked in 2007 at 6.13 billion tons and since then have fallen to 5.28 billion tons in 2019 – a reduction of almost 14%. Most people would be surprised to learn that the primary reason for this decline is the fracking revolution. Fracking has allowed the US to utilize natural gas rather than coal in order to produce electricity. Happily, natural gas emits only about 60% as much carbon as coal per unit of energy released. So the US has succeeded in substantially lowering our carbon emissions, not because of solar panels and windmills, but by switching from coal to natural gas.

China has become an economic powerhouse in large part thanks to coal powered energy. They have absolutely no intention of giving back any of these hard won gains by agreeing to economically harmful carbon cuts. For their contribution to the Paris Climate Agreement, China pledged to reach peak carbon emission by around 2030. Now that might sound good, but the reality is that China was already on track to reach peak carbon emissions before the Paris Agreement was signed. Like India, China’s contribution to the Paris accord amounts to essentially nothing.

Now don’t misunderstand my argument here. I believe that it’s a very good thing that countries like China and India are doing everything they can to provide their people with the kind of affordable, reliable energy that we enjoy in the US. Wise policies which embrace the use of fossil fuels will produce cheap and abundant energy. Abundant energy in turn will lift even more people out of poverty. Thanks to fossil fuels, countless people around the world are living happier, healthier lives. Now I am in no way suggesting that fossil fuels have no problems. All forms of energy come with potential problems. But the clear fact is that fossil fuels allow human beings to flourish.

In the years following the signing of the Paris agreement, China has come under more and more pressure from Western nations to truly address its rising carbon emissions. China’s President Xi Jinping recently promised to make his country carbon neutral by 2060, but these are laughably empty words. For even as the Chinese government pays lip service to climate change, China continues to build dozens of new coal-fired power plants. In 2020 alone, China added 38.4 gigawatts of new coal-fired power, with much more on the way. (For perspective, one gigawatt is one billion watts, enough to power roughly 500,000 homes for one year!) The reality is that coal remains the beating heart of China’s economic prosperity.

Now it is quite true that China has also pursued renewable forms of energy like wind, solar, hydroelectric and nuclear power. But the Chinese are hungry for any form of energy that can help power their society. Additionally, the Chinese interest in renewable energy sources has more to do with pollution than carbon emissions. Air pollution caused by coal burning is a huge problem in China. The Chinese people are very angry about the smog which blankets their country and leads to many health problems. Even the Communist Party in China recognizes that they must balance the blessing of coal powered prosperity with the curse of air pollution. The bottom line is that, for the Chinese, carbon emissions are far less of a concern compared with energy security and pollution.

The flaws of the Paris Climate Agreement go far beyond the fact that large carbon emitters like India and China have no intention of sacrificing economic prosperity for painful carbon cuts. Make no mistake, these proposed cuts will indeed be painful. Some politicians and pundits are fond of claiming that embracing renewable energy really requires no sacrifice at all. They say we can save the planet and create more jobs and prosperity. Such claims are patently false. The basic premise of the Paris accord is that nations must forgo the cheap, plentiful and reliable energy of fossil fuels. This means we must either acquire energy from carbon free renewables or simply use less energy. But the simple truth is that renewable energy sources like wind and solar are expensive and unreliable. If switching from fossil fuels to renewables was so fantastic, it would already have happened. We certainly wouldn’t need the Paris Climate Agreement.

It is amazing how many politicians and media figures are constantly telling us that wind and solar are ready to power the world. This is an astonishingly misleading claim. Despite billions of dollars of government subsidies, wind only accounted for 2.85% of US energy production in 2019, while solar was responsible for a minuscule 1.02%. Most people don’t realize that old fashioned hydroelectric power accounts for much of our renewable energy production and is far superior to wind and solar because it is much more reliable. Yet even if we include all renewable energy sources including hydro, this only accounts for 8.71% of US energy use in 2019. The idea that wind and solar can somehow replace fossil fuels is utterly preposterous. As climate scientist Jim Hansen once said, “Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels… is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.” Think about this the next time you hear a politician like Joe Biden talk about the US going carbon neutral by 2030.

So switching from cheap, reliable fossil fuels to expensive, unreliable renewables will come with a very high price tag. Now many economists have scrutinized the carbon cuts promised under the Paris Climate Agreement in order to clarify exactly what the cost will be. They estimate that the carbon cuts promised by the United States alone will cost at least $150 billion. The total worldwide cost for the Paris accord is estimated to approach an astounding $1-2 trillion each and every year until 2100. So by the time we reach the year 2100, the total bill will exceed $150 trillion. Yikes! The Paris Climate Agreement will be breathtakingly expensive.

Let’s now look at what benefits we might receive from this astronomically expensive purchase. UN estimates that without any carbon cuts at all, the world will emit about 6000 gigatons of carbon dioxide from 2020 until 2100. Now we’ve noted before that the UN’s climate models substantially overestimate the warming effect of carbon dioxide. But for the sake of argument, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. Using their own climate models, the UN estimates that for each 1000 gigatons of carbon emitted, the world will experience 0.8 degrees F of temperature increase. Let’s also make the incredibly unrealistic assumption that every nation in the world completely fulfills its promised carbon cuts under the Paris Climate Agreement. (It should surprise no one that in the five years since the Paris agreement was signed, actual carbon cuts are far, far below what was promised.) Even under such a wildly optimistic scenario, we will have reduced our overall carbon emissions by about 500 gigatons by 2100. So using the UN’s own flawed models, we shall have reduced the future temperature increase by only 0.4 degrees F. That’s right – by the year 2100 our temperatures will be less than one half a degree F less than what they would have been otherwise. And this would cost hundreds of trillions of dollars. As economist Bjorn Lomborg says, “The Paris Agreement will cost a fortune to carry out and do almost no good.”

I hope you can now understand why the Paris Climate Agreement is an unmitigated disaster. Full implementation of the agreement would be a worldwide tragedy. It would hurt all of us, but as usual the worst consequences would fall upon the poor. Staggering amount of money would be wasted – money which could otherwise be allocated for education, health care, or infrastructure. Let’s do everything we can to ensure that this calamity does not come to pass.