wil burns, an expert in environmental policy, holds a ph.d. in international law from the university of wales-cardiff. burns’ research primarily focuses on climate geoengineering governance \u2014 or, the deliberate and large-scale intervention of our climate system with the goal of counteracting climate change, and the policies needed to achieve that goal.<\/p>\n
while burns helped host a workshop for ngos on carbon dioxide removal\/negative emissions at the george washington university, planet forward sat down with him to discuss the paris climate agreement and other climate change policies. read on to see an edited version of our conversation:<\/p>\n
planet forward: how did you become involved in climate policy research?<\/strong><\/p>\n
wil burns: <\/strong>i started off working on the impacts of climate change on small island states, specifically how small island states might either adapt to climate change or how they might use legal mechanisms to try to “press” the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases to reduce their emissions. then, about 12 years ago, i became interested in climate geoengineering. i had just happened to read an article, [while] on a plane, from usa today and i thought it was an interesting topic for teaching because it\u2019s a topic that\u2019s an interface of law and science and ethics and technology and politics.<\/p>\n
while teaching about this i got excited about doing more research and ultimately, at john hopkins, simon nicholson from american university and i decided that there should be a think tank that would try to ensure that if we do decide to look at climate geoengineering as a society, that we include all<\/em> of the stakeholders … that was one of the fears we had, so the purpose of these kind of forums are to ensure that other stakeholders like ngos and the general public \u2014 who would be affected by these technologies \u2014 are a part of the conversation.<\/p>\n
pf: while human ingenuity seems almost endless, do you think it\u2019s harmful to rely solely<\/em> on technology to confront the challenges that global warming poses? <\/strong><\/p>\n
burns: <\/strong>well, i certainly think it\u2019s harmful to rely on technologies that seek to mask<\/em> the warming that\u2019s associated with emissions. for example, [there is] one kind of geoengineering, which is carbon-dioxide removal<\/a>. there\u2019s another kind called solar radiation management.<\/a> the effort there [with the solar radiation management] is to just reduce the amount of incoming sunlight. so if there\u2019s less solar radiation to be trapped by the greenhouse gases, it reduces the warming. but that\u2019s a short term sort of palliative [technique]. and the long term, if emissions continue to rise, it will at some point overwhelm those options. plus, those options are extremely risky for a number of other reasons. so, i think that type of technological hubris is wrong. i think the kind of technologies we\u2019re looking at have potentially a supplementary role, but in many ways it\u2019s because they have risks [so] they\u2019re not necessarily permanent either. the best thing we need to do is reduce our emissions. but in a lot of cases when you think about reducing emissions through things like renewable energy or energy efficiency methods, there\u2019s certainly a role for technology in that context also. solar, geothermal, wind power are based on technology also, so there is a role for technology.<\/p>\n
burns: <\/strong>i think the jury is definitely out. i think that, ultimately, carbon dioxide removal strategies, things like bioenergy<\/a> and carbon capture<\/a> (beccs) or direct air capture will have a modest role to play. but even a modest role is good. the difference between, for example, a temperature increase of 3.0 and 2.5 degrees or 2.5 to 2.0 can be substantial in terms of the impacts on ecosystems or human institutions. even if the role is relatively modest, which i think it will [be], it could be important. carbon capture involves trapping the carbon dioxide at its emission source, transporting it to a storage location \u2014 usually deep underground \u2014 and isolating it. this means we could potentially grab excess co2 right from the power plant, creating greener energy. <\/p>\n
pf: you\u2019ve done a lot of research on the paris climate agreement. what are some steps that countries are currently taking? and do you think the paris climate agreement is effective?<\/strong><\/p>\n
burns:<\/strong> well, again, the jury is going to be out on the paris until we start seeing whether the pledges that are made are implemented, first of all. then when the parties reassess their claims they have a process called \u201cstock-taking\u201d where they\u2019re supposed to say: are we on path to meet this goal to holding temperatures well below 2.0\u00b0 celsius and if we\u2019re not are we willing to escalate what we\u2019re willing to do? the good news about paris is that we\u2019re clearly bending the temperature increase trajectory. we used to talk about maybe 4.0\u00b0 or 5.0\u00b0 celsius of increased temperatures by the end of the century. we\u2019re increasingly talking about somewhere between 2.7\u00b0 to 3.5\u00b0\/3.7\u00b0, so that\u2019s the good news. the bad news is that\u2019s still way<\/em> beyond where we want to be and way beyond paris says we\u2019re going to be. if <\/em>the current pledges of paris are all totally implemented faithfully, we go from 47 gigatons of carbon-dioxide annually to 58. so we slow down<\/em> the rate of increase but we keep increasing. we can\u2019t do that because if you think of it as water in a bathtub, the water is going up more slowly but eventually the bathtub will overfill. so the real test for paris is going to be: when we start these assessments and we realize we\u2019re not where we need to be, are parties willing to escalate? one of the hopes you have with an agreement like paris is, [it’s] an international agreement in which countries come together, start to learn from each other, start to collaborate more because treaties can foster cooperation. and you hope by doing that parties start to learn that reducing emissions can be done more cheaply than they thought, they realize other countries are actually complying with what they said, and that impels them to do more also, and ultimately reduces emissions more than they have.<\/p>\n
pf: the trump administration has decided they will be pulling the u.s. out of paris. how complicated is it to pull out of the paris climate agreement? and if we successfully do pull out, how complicated will it be for a following administration to put the united states back into the agreement?<\/strong><\/p>\n
burns: <\/strong>in terms of the first question, it\u2019s complicated<\/em> to get out. one of the reasons that we do that is we don\u2019t want other countries that have relied on an agreement and then other parties that have joined just suddenly pulling out because they then have to respond themselves and decide if they\u2019re going to withdraw or if it\u2019s going to change the nature of their commitments. so we make it a slow process. the way paris works is, you can\u2019t give notice of your intention to withdraw, until three years after you ratified paris. so we couldn\u2019t give notice that we actually intended to withdraw from paris until three years from november, 2016. then it takes another year before it takes effect and goes into force. since the trump administration has announced its intention to withdraw, it can\u2019t legally actually announce that intention until three years from november of last year, and can\u2019t withdraw until a year after that<\/em>. our effective date of withdrawing from paris is pretty much after the next election.<\/p>\n
pf: so we could possibly have a new administration in office by that time?<\/strong><\/p>\n
burns: <\/strong>we could<\/em>. if we announce in three years [after ratification] that we\u2019re withdrawing, it will probably happen and it\u2019d be very difficult to reverse it at that point. now getting back in, is potentially a relatively simple process in the sense that, what we did with the paris agreement is we entered by something called an \u201cexecutive agreement,\u201d instead of going to the senate. the reason we were able to get the treaty bypassed from ratification by two thirds of the senate, is because we said we could do this under executive agreement. and we could do this because the commitments we made under paris were no more than what we were already doing in terms of national legislation or regulations or current treaty obligations. so the argument we made was, since paris is voluntary, we had already agreed under the framework convention on climate change (which we\u2019re a party to), that we would reduce our emissions to a level that wouldn\u2019t cause dangerous anthropogenic impacts. we said that paris just defines what “dangerous” is. we aren\u2019t required to do more than what we were before and we had domestic regulations called the clean power plan<\/a> to reduce our emissions, and those<\/em> commitments would be tracked by what we were committing to under paris. so if we did that again, and we came back in under an executive agreement, it could be done relatively quickly.<\/p>\n