A Paris Agreement Negotiator Explains How Screwed We Are

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A Paris Agreement Negotiator Explains How Screwed We Are
Jason Koebler

Jun 1 2017, 3:23pm


Image: Shutterstock
"The rest of the world is moving forward with cars and we’re betting on the horse and buggy."


Paul Bodnar spent much of the last few years of his life negotiating the finer points of the Paris Agreement in President Obama's White House, where he was Senior Director of Energy and Climate Change for the National Security Council. At the Paris Climate Conference, he worked closely with Todd Stern, the United States's lead negotiator on the deal, which President Trump just announced America will withdraw from.

Bodnar is currently the Managing Director of the Rocky Mountain Institute think tank, where he works on sustainable finance. I called Bodnar to try to make sense of Trump's decision and to discuss how screwed we might be.


MOTHERBOARD: When you hear the US is pulling out of something you dedicated years of your life to, what comes to mind?
Paul Bodnar: What comes to mind is the phrase "shooting yourself in the foot." Regardless of your views on climate policy, the fact is 195 countries have decided that they're going to be making this transition to a clean energy economy, not only because it's important to head off the worst effects of climate change but because of the other benefits it has. We're effectively saying we don't want to be part of that, which means we're going to lose out on an opportunity to lean in to an $8 trillion global market for clean energy technologies and services. If you're passionate about economic competitiveness, that's a disappointment regardless of your views on climate change.



When we talked before, you said the agreement was as much a diplomacy win as it was a win for the environment. How will this affect our global standing?
Our standing in the world and ability to exercise leadership when we want to will come down a few notches—maybe permanently, because we're not projecting ourselves as a trustworthy country. It will negatively impact our ability to lead on terrorism and other multilayer issues that require balancing interests.

It's a sad day for American foreign policy. There are a whole number of initiatives that operate in and around the multilateral climate process that the US may get shut out of or may shut itself out of. Whether that's collaboration on clean energy research and development or other solutions that benefit american exporters, we're not even at the table.

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