The media have failed to capture the significance of the Senate’s ratification of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. Over 20 Republicans joined Democrats to back this international agreement designed to address climate change.
Kigali’s emissions reductions come with the phase-down of HFCs, a greenhouse gas that is used in refrigerants and air conditioning. This strong GOP showing may come as a surprise, especially given conservative skepticism of multilateral agreements such as the Paris climate accord. But rest assured, Republicans haven’t embraced climate change globalism. Instead, they were driven largely by commercial interests since Kigali approval is expected to generate roughly 150,000 direct and indirect jobs. Moreover, the U.S. industry stands to gain a 25% greater global market share in refrigerant alternatives.
In many ways, GOP support for Kigali is the most recent indicator of a growing focus on industrial policymaking. Before the Trump administration, such an interest would have been denounced as anti-free market, but Republican policy is increasingly shaped by the evolving geopolitical struggle with China. This concern motivated some GOP lawmakers to provide crucial votes for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the CHIPS and Science Act. It also motivated Republicans to support a range of clean energy tax incentives in 2020.
Proponents of developing a national consensus on climate should take note. Linking climate policies to economic and national security measures provides opportunities for bipartisan policymaking with significant global emissions reductions. And in Kigali’s case, the Montreal Protocol offers a model for the next steps in developing this strategy — in contrast to the Paris Agreement.
That said, climate activists should first abandon a commonly shared belief that achieving U.S. emissions cuts must be costly. This attitude has harmed efforts to reach a bipartisan agreement. And it played no role whatsoever in the Montreal Protocol negotiations, which created a global regulatory framework that monetized U.S. leadership in refrigeration innovation. While the U.S. industry made billions of dollars as a result, the Montreal Protocol also achieved its goal of protecting and healing the ozone layer.
Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, view global climate agreements through the lens of their negative effect on U.S. competitiveness. That’s for good reason. The Kyoto Protocol would have required stiff U.S. emissions reductions, and both it and the Paris Agreement largely gave a free pass to China. However, a growing number of Republicans, especially Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA), are looking to create a new paradigm that could change GOP views on international climate cooperation.
These Republicans want to monetize America’s carbon efficiency to help reshore key components of the supply chain, bolster manufacturing, and recapture the global market share lost to China and others. The Chinese economy’s carbon intensity is more than three times that of America’s; Russia’s economy is four times more. America, in coordination with its allies, stands to gain significant geopolitical and economic benefits with a trade and climate policy that makes it harder for Beijing to leverage its poor environmental standards as a competitive advantage.
While details of any Republican trade policy design remain undetermined, GOP interest in using economic policy to counter China presents bipartisan opportunities. A new trade paradigm could be transformative for global climate policymaking. Moreover, from an emissions perspective, making goods here in America and displacing dirtier Chinese products cuts global carbon pollution.
George David Banks is a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center and previously served as special assistant for International Energy and Environment at the National Economic and National Security councils in the Trump administration.
