US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7738

Both President Obama’s 2016 signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change and President Trump’s withdrawal from that agreement today fit into a category I will label as QTIIPS.

QTIIPS stands for Quantitatively Trivial Impact + Intense Political Symbolism.

QTIIPS policy changes provoke fierce political battles over trivially small policy impacts. Passionate advocates on both sides ignore numbers and policy details while fighting endlessly about symbols.

A policy change is QTIIPS if:

• its direct measurable effects are quite small relative to the underlying policy problem to be solved;
  
• it is viewed both by supporters and opponents as a first step toward an end state that all agree would be quite a large change;
  
• supporters and opponents alike attach great significance to the direction of the change, as a precursor to possible future movement toward that quantitatively significant end goal; and
  
• a fierce political battle erupts over the symbolism of this directional shift. This political battle is often zero-sum, unresolvable, and endless.
  

Advocates on either side of a QTIIPS policy change have desired end states that represent fundamentally different policy outcomes. But while the policy gap between their desired end states is measured in miles, on a QTIIPS policy, actual changes are measured in inches. The battle rages over which end state is the right one, but when policy shifts back and forth it changes direction often but moves only a tiny bit each time. Political constraints make the theoretical debate about miles-apart differences irrelevant because neither end state will ever occur, but that does not deter the theoretical war from raging during the real-world battles over a tiny actual change in direction.

If you listened to President Trump’s remarks today you would think staying in the Paris Agreement would destroy the U.S. economy. If you listen to many advocates who support the agreement, you would think you need to start building an ark, soon.

I therefore read the text of the agreement to see for myself. Doing so reinforced the view I developed when the agreement was concluded. Relative to the scope of the problem it is trying to solve, the Paris Agreement is quantitatively trivial. It is a set of weak process agreements, with many areas of ambiguous language and “flexibility” for countries to reinterpret their only loosely binding quantitative commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions many years from now.

On June 03 2017 01:23 Danglars wrote:

Keith Hennessey highlights the intersectionality between politics, debate, and impact in the Paris agreement. It reflects the absurdity of imputing symbolic battles to actual battles.

On June 03 2017 01:28 a_flayer wrote:

Symbolic, maybe, but at least it was a global recognition of the factual world around us and that we need to act. Meanwhile, you're still up there practically denying that climate change will impact our habitat in any significant way, which is why there is a battle in the first place.

But this shared assumption, of a first step or slippery slope, could easily be wrong. If the Paris Agreement were never to have led to a more significant next step, then a key premise of the fight is wrong. The intense political symbolism and the fierce battles waged over both President Obama’s and President Trump’s relatively small policy moves would then be unsupported by strong policy arguments.

I think that’s the case here. I think Paris was not just the first step, I think it was likely the last step, that those who hoped it would lead to “deepening future commitments” were fooling themselves and others. I think Paris was agreed to only because national leaders realized it was impossible to get a numerically meaningful set of binding national commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by specific large amounts. They therefore grabbed the best agreement they could, however weak, kicking the can down the road in the hope that somehow their successors might have more luck. Because I am so skeptical about the first step claim, and because I care far more about the policy impact than about the symbolism, my reaction is mild both to President Obama’s signing in 2016 and to President Trump’s withdrawal announcement today. I think neither agreeing to Paris nor withdrawing from it would have changed future global temperatures by any meaningful amount. Even before today I was skeptical that it would lead to any significant next steps, so I conclude that these symbolic battles about the Paris Agreement are almost meaningless.

On June 03 2017 01:36 LegalLord wrote:
Trump's basic shtick with this and his other decisions was that these deals are a bad deal for America and so we need better deals. He's two for three on stumbling into the right result so far though.

On June 03 2017 01:33 Broetchenholer wrote:
Danglers, this is really not complicated. If Trumpo had said "we believe man made climae change is a threat to society and we will fight it through policy but we disagree on the first step, that is the paris agreement. therefore, we step out", this definition would have applied. But the Republicans and Trump disagree on the problem itself, so them not joining a symbolic treaty actually is a big deal.

On June 03 2017 01:30 ZeromuS wrote:
But the frustration with Trump's decisions isn't just about his actual impact on the environment.

It is about the symbolic abdication of power and the fact that his position shows that he doesn't even care symbolically about climate change.

Its a signal that the federal US government, while he is in charge, doesn't really support climate action on any level. Thats a bad message to send globally and to the market. Even if the real actual policies aren't very strong behind the treaty, it shows that the US just doesn't care.

That has real political ramifications that go beyond the actual climate accord. Thats the REAL issue.

That whole QTIIPS thing is a deflection of deeper issues.

On June 03 2017 01:34 Danglars wrote:

Conversely, highlighting meaningless symbolism teaches others that you don't want to act, either. You'll choose to advance agreements that predicate recognizing the problem on knowing it doesn't mean you have to do anything about it.

On June 03 2017 01:12 Danglars wrote:

It's important to acknowledge your bad apples to prove it's about science and results instead of narrative. Inconvenient facts that cause "distraction" isn't much of a step up from alternative facts.

On June 03 2017 01:45 Godwrath wrote:
Giving credence to an article that attempts to discredit the Paris accord because it's "merely symbolic" just to be able to missdirect the criticism about the self-denial running rampant amongst republican party, that's rich and deep. As if, the republicans actually gave a shit about the issue and left it because "it wasn't good enough".

Of course the Paris accord wasn't good enough. It is a first fucking step.

On June 03 2017 01:51 Doodsmack wrote:


Question is, what is Musk's net effect on the environment? His work is obviously a massive net positive. He should not be considered a bad apple and told to fuck off.

On June 03 2017 00:45 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Those actual results include the fact that Republicans have historically denied that climate change had even occurred in the first place...