Climate Change Research ›› 2017, Vol. 13 ›› Issue (5): 415-427.doi: 10.12006/j.issn.1673-1719.2017.147

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Global Climate Change, Finance, Governance Deficits Due to the United States Declared Its Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement

Fu Sha1, Chai Qimin1,2, Xu Huaqing1   

  1. 1 National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation(NCSC), Beijing 100038, China;
    2 Research Center for Contemporary Management(RCCM), Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
  • Received:2017-07-18 Revised:2017-08-04 Online:2017-09-30 Published:2017-09-30

Abstract:

In the afternoon of June 1, 2017, the United States President Trump officially announced its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, thus study on the reasons of withdrawal, the follow up impact and coping strategies became the focus of the international community. Based on the self-developed the United States policy evaluation model, this paper systematically evaluates the three gaps of global climate change mitigation, finance and governance after the United States declared its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, and put forward China's response strategy and suggestion. The study shows that the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will impact on the existence and implementation of successive climate policies and make the United States' GHG emissions in 2030 reach 5.79 (5.60-5.98) billion tons of CO2-eq, which is equivalent to a decrease of 12.1% (9.1%-15.0%) at the 2005 level and a rise of 1.64 (1.25-2.01) billion tons of CO2-eq emission compared to the NDC scenario, and cause additional 8.8% to 13.4% of the global emission reductions deficit. The refusal of the United States to continue to meet its financial support obligations will also worse the situation of current climate finance mechanism. The global climate fund's funding gap will increase by US$ 2 billion, while the gap in long-term climate finance will increase by about US$ 5 billion per year. With at least 40% increase in GCF contributions from Japan and the European Union (EU), while an at least 25.2% increase of EU and its member states' overall financial support, can fulfill the financial deficit caused by the United States. The United States is an important party in the global climate governance, and the impact of the United States' withdrawal has spread to the main agenda of global governance, it is unrealistic to expect China-EU, BASIC plus, and so on to quickly fill the governance deficit caused by the United States at short time and the "low period" of global governance may inevitably last for a while. Although the international community is looking forward to China's leadership in global climate governance, China should have a clear understanding of the cost, benefits and feasibility of playing "leading role" and shall remain be cautious and determine its strategy in addressing climate through long-term plans. At the same time, China should focus more on domestic work, reach a strategic consensus on climate change, and preparing for "leadership" in long-term. China should also actively promote the international cooperation at all levels to find a way to deal with "three deficits" problem.

Key words: Trump administration, Paris Agreement, mitigation deficit, finance deficit, global climate governance deficit

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