Sue Biniaz on the Trump Administration and International Climate Policy
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2019
⏱️ 88 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From 1989 to early 2017, Sue Biniaz was the lead climate lawyer and a climate negotiator at the State Department. She was also a key architect of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, a UN-negotiated agreement designed to mitigate global warming, which went into effect in November 2016. In June 2017, President Trump announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the agreement.
Sue sat down with Lawfare's Jack Goldsmith to talk about the early days of U.S. and international climate action, how the Paris Agreement came into force and the predecessor agreements that gave rise to it, how it was supposed to operate, and what impacts Trump's actions have had on international climate policy.
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Transcript
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| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | No one has changed its national determined contribution. |
| 0:37.0 | And I think in part it's again like a resistance thing to the US. |
| 0:42.0 | But I think what I think is interesting is in some sense, |
| 0:45.0 | is this national determined approach is more resilient than Kyoto. |
| 0:50.0 | Because Kyoto targets were negotiated in contemplation of what others were doing. |
| 0:56.0 | In other words, you might take on a more stringent target |
| 0:59.0 | because another country was taking on a more stringent target. |
| 1:02.0 | And then if they pulled the rug out from under you, |
| 1:05.0 | you would not know really how to react. |
| 1:08.0 | And you might not be willing to implement some target if you counterpart |
| 1:12.0 | wasn't implemented there. |
| 1:13.0 | But this NDC concept, you were picking a target that worked. |
| 1:17.0 | It was national determined. It made sense for you. |
| 1:19.0 | And it kind of continues to make sense for you, |
| 1:21.0 | like notwithstanding what the United States decides to do. |
| 1:25.0 | I'm Benjamin Widis and this is the Law Fair Podcast March 27th, 2019. |
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