The free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute launched a counter-strike Tuesday morning against business and environmental groups looking to keep the U.S. a part of the United Nations’ Kigali climate agreement that the Obama administration signed onto.
The libertarian think tank’s senior fellow Ben Lieberman issued a brief on Tuesday that seeks to debunk what proponents of the agreement say are its positive economic advantages.
Business groups “have joined forces with environmental activists to lobby for the Kigali Amendment’s ratification,” Lieberman writes. “In doing so, they have made a number of claims that do not stand up to scrutiny,” he says, referring to the claims as “myths.”
The Kigali agreement amends the 1987 Montreal Protocol that was negotiated under President Ronald Reagan to eliminate chemicals found in aerosol sprays and other consumer products. The chemicals were found to be decimating the protective ozone layer of the atmosphere.
The chemicals that replaced the aerosols in the 1980s are now found in air conditioners and refrigerators, and are considered powerful greenhouse gases that raise the temperature of the planet. The Kigali amendment seeks to phase out these chemicals, called hydrofluorocarbons, and replace them with new, alternative refrigerants that aren’t harmful to the climate. But President Trump still needs to send the agreement to the Senate for it to be ratified before it goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2019. Forty-six nations have currently ratified the agreement out of nearly 200, the U.N. said last week.
One of the central arguments that business and environmental groups are making to sway the administration and the Senate to get behind the deal is the fact that it will create jobs through the production of new, more competitive products. But Lieberman argues that the new replacement chemicals will instead raise product prices.
“Granted, a relative few refrigerant makers stand to gain, particularly the two that have patented costly substitutes for which they hope to secure a captive market via Kigali,” the brief reads. “Thus, certain companies may expand hiring in response to the windfall they expect to get under Kigali, but that windfall would be at the expense of their competitors, so the overall jobs impact in the refrigeration and air-conditioning sector is likely to be a wash.”
Lieberman also argues that the deal would raise the cost of household appliances like refrigerators and air conditioners by hundreds and thousands of dollars, without generating money-saving efficiency improvements. “You cannot improve efficiency by restricting refrigerant choice; you can only compromise it,” writes Lieberman.
He also goes after claims that the the Kigali agreement is bipartisan, calling it “strictly a product of the Obama administration that deviates from the Montreal Protocol’s stated purpose.”
On that point, the industry group The Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy disagrees, noting that the Montreal Protocol was negotiated during the Reagan administration and amended by the George H.W. Bush administration. “There have been four previous amendments to the Montreal Protocol, negotiated by both Republican and Democratic administrations, and ratified by both Republican and Democratic U.S. Senate majorities,” The Alliance noted on its website.
The business coalition pointed out that a group of 13 GOP senators sent a letter to Trump in June, saying ratifying the amendment would help companies keep them competitive and give them certainty in a changing global industry. Conservative groups that include FreedomWorks and the Americans for Tax Reform even urged Trump to endorse the agreement for similar reasons as the senators.
The United Nations ramped up its efforts to support the implementation of the Kigali deal last week ahead of the General Assembly taking place now in New York.
The U.N. hosted World Ozone Day last week to underscore the need for Kigali to move into force on Jan. 1.
“This amendment is expected to avoid up to 0.5°C of global warming by the end of the century, while continuing to protect the ozone layer,” the U.N. said in a statement.
The 46 countries that have now ratified the deal have committed themselves to cutting the production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons by over 80 percent in the next 30 years and replacing them with “planet-friendly alternatives,” according to the U.N.
