In this case, I'm not sure the details matter. Why should anyone assume Trump has any other reasons for doing this than those which are in plain view? The ideas and intentions behind the action are what matter.
>Acknowledging
that climate change is a common concern of humankind,
Parties
should, when taking action to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their
respective obligations on human rights,
the right to health, the rights of
indigenous peoples,
local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable
situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of
women and intergenerational equity,
That doesn't sound like it has a whole lot to do with climate change. It could potentially be used to force the United States to accept migrants, which Trump has opposed.
EDIT:
From the White House's Facebook page,
"The United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord but begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris Accord, or an entirely new transaction, on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers."
> That doesn't sound like it has a whole lot to do with climate change. It could potentially be used to force the United States to accept migrants, which Trump has opposed.
I don't think so. That passage is just acknowledging that countries may have obligations under other agreements, and that these should be respected, promoted, and considered when those countries are trying to address climate change.
I think what they are getting at is that a country should not use climate change and the Paris agreement as a justification for shirking their responsibilities under other agreements.
Consider Saudi Arabia, which is noted for giving women less freedom than men. Saudi Arabia is a party to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). They are a party to Paris, too. It is not hard to imagine a scenario where increasing the freedom of women in Saudi Arabia in some particular area might in theory raise their carbon footprint.
I think what that passage is getting at is that they should not say, "Hey, we have to meet the Paris goals, so too bad, women! We've got to drop CEDAW to save the planet!". They are supposed to figure out a way to meet Paris goals and meet their CEDAW obligations.
Or to use your example of migrants, what it means to the US is that if we are obligated to accept migrants under some existing agreement, we should not try to say that the migrants have a high carbon footprint and reject them. We should try to meet both obligations.
If gender equality has a negative effect on the climate (ie. more cars, more refined produce consumed, etc), why would they have this as a requirement in the Paris accord?
I guess where I was getting at is that they seemed to have used this agreement to push a westernized social agenda. Considering that every country is sovereign, I'm not sure this is a proper approach.
Mind you, I would love to have gender equality across the world but it would be preferable to offer opt-in approaches.
It's been suggested that if the Paris agreement lasts for the remainder of the century, the reduction in global temperature would be 0.023 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. This is in practice unmeasurable thanks to rounding errors. Details matter.
I haven't looked at this specific calculation, but at the current levels of CO2, which won't go down in 100 years, Earth will reach a temperature equilibrium about 2°C higher than now.
Unless our science is totally wrong, without environmental engineering, it must be relative to business as usual.
I think that 2nd critique is spot on. I tried reading his paper yesterday and thought the graphs looked rather strange, with weird transitions in 2030, when he assumed all CO2 reduction efforts would stop.