Effectively, the United States was pursuing an agreement that blurred the lines between developed and developing nations so that all countries, including major emitters like China, had to submit proposals for emissions reductions. But this also allowed the U.S. to skirt any mandatory cuts, which was in its own unilateral interests.
Ultimately, the language of the draft negotiating text evolved from being “lengthy and duplicative” with “not one word agreed” to a proposal that made U.S. officials feel “cautiously optimistic” about moving forward with an “ambitious” Paris Agreement.
Many of the details of Washington’s strategy at Paris have been discussed in accounts such as former Special Climate Envoy Todd Stern’s book, Landing the Paris Agreement: How it Happened, Why it Matters, and What Comes Next. Today’s posting reveals contemporaneous documentation that confirms Kerry’s dual approach.
To mark the anniversary of the Paris Agreement, the National Security Archive today posts 12 declassified documents on the negotiations, featuring four never-before-seen State Department records (Documents 3, 4, 5, and 6) detailing U.S. views, questions, and “redline[s]” during climate negotiations ahead of COP21 in Paris. Obtained through targeted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the documents include declassified State Department cables on roadblocks encountered and progress made in drafting the agreement’s negotiating text, strategy points for dealing with country coalitions, and rough projections of globally averaged surface temperature increases to the year 2300.
Notably, in the months leading up to Paris, State Department negotiators discussed a “hybrid” approach proposed by New Zealand wherein some procedural provisions would be required under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), such as each individual country’s proposed emission reduction pledge. However, each Party would not be legally bound to actually hit those pledges. (Document 7) Pitching a protocol like Kyoto that was fully legally binding would lead to a treaty dead in the water: The President would be required to submit the treaty before the Senate for ratification, and the divided Senate, under President Obama, would have never passed a Paris Treaty with the required 60 votes.
A Paris Agreement, however, allowed Obama to enter the United States into the accord via Executive Agreement, bypassing Congress altogether. The United States knew it would “likely face questions” from other nations about an agreement’s legal form and “were worried about Saudis/others blocking consensus.” (Document 5) In fact, a U.S. delegation strategy document revealed that U.S. officials were “having trouble controlling EU on expectations for legal force” of the agreement. (Document 6)