The former Republican senator who led the mid-1990s charge against an international climate deal is warning current lawmakers about doing the same for a potential Paris deal.
Former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel said Republican-led charges to block President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of the American plans for any agreement reached in Paris, would undermine the United States’ credibility as a world leader.
“This is in the interest of our country, in the interest of our environment and the world and the interest of our alliances,” Hagel said in an interview with Politico.
“Issues like this can be used for very narrow political reasons, and I think that’s irresponsible.”
The House passed two Senate resolutions that would block the Clean Power Plan and carbon emissions restrictions on new coal-fired power plants Tuesday. The votes capped off a day of messages from Congress to nations meeting in Paris about climate change, showing that Obama doesn’t have Congress’ support on climate change policy.
Hagel, a former defense secretary under Obama, pushed a 1997 Senate resolution that had the effect of blocking U.S. ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, the first international climate change deal.
Hagel co-authored the resolution with then-Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va, which said the Senate wouldn’t support any agreement that committed the U.S. to emissions cuts unless developing countries followed suit. The resolution passed 95-0.
Hagel said he didn’t favor a top-down solution, with rich countries being forced to make the majority of emissions cuts, in 1997. However, the former Nebraska senator sees a different story playing out in Paris, with developing nations making commitments, such as China’s commitment to peak emissions and institute cap-and-trade.
The U.S. must be a part of the Paris agreement, he said.
“The rest of the world has to have some confidence that the United States will comply with what it says or we know what happens,” Hagel said. “The Chinese, the Russians, others say, ‘Well, why should we comply when the United States may not?'”
