Paris Climate Accords’ Double Standards Hurt U.S. Competitiveness

May 4, 2021

For environmentalists and the Biden Administration, the Paris Climate Accords have become a north star, guiding every one of their major policy initiatives and becoming a convenient excuse for all types of unpopular actions. But as they move toward this goal, the Administration is being willfully blind to the fact that much of the world – including some highly polluting nations – will never make good on these promises.

One of the most obvious examples is with China and India. These two nations represent the second and fifth largest economies in the world respectively. Yet the Paris Accords classified them as “developing nations” giving them much greater latitude in how they could approach reducing their climate footprint.

In a piece at Forbes, David Blackmon looks at whether and how the world could meet the climate goals set out by the Paris Accords. Not surprisingly, he finds some challenges:

One example comes from India, a developing nation that is home to 1.4 billion human beings. Early in April, Raj Kumar Singh, that country’s Power Minister, told a meeting organized by the International Energy Agency that these “net-zero” commitments are unrealistic for his country and other developing nations.

Of a recent quasi-commitment by fellow “developing nation” China to potentially pursue a net-zero goal by 2060, Singh said “2060 sounds good, but it is just that, it sounds good.” He then added, “I would call it, and I’m sorry to say this, but it is just a pie in the sky.”

Pie in the sky is an accurate way to put it. But unfortunately, these ‘pie in the sky’ goals are all too real for the Biden Administration. Instead of focusing on achievable goals and bringing other nations along with us, they focus on Green New Deal policies that will make the United States less competitive globally, raise energy prices, and destroy millions of high-paying, middle class jobs.