THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2024 27 As climate change alters our planet, the U.S. is leading the way in developing sound global policies to combat the crisis. BY SUE BINIAZ In the words of the 2022 U.S. National Security Strategy, the climate crisis is the “existential challenge of our time.” Climate issues already affect nearly every aspect of our foreign policy and national security and will shape geopolitics for decades. Effects to date are likely just a mild preview of what is to come if the world does not act at unprecedented speed and scale, particularly in this critical decade. The United States is both uniquely capable of leading a global response to the climate crisis and uniquely vulnerable to blame if we are not seen to be doing just that. In that regard, when the parties to the Paris Agreement met last December in Dubai (COP28), they issued their first “Global Stocktake,” an assessment of progress to date as well as needed next steps, with respect to greenhouse gas emission reductions, adaptation to climate impacts, and climate finance. The Global Stocktake has been hailed as “historic,” charting the course for a temperature-safe, climate-resilient world. In this fourth year of the administration, on the road to COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, it’s a good time to do a “stocktake” of our own climate diplomacy. So ... have we led the global response? And are we sufficiently set up to do what is needed to keep the world on a climate-safe trajectory? The Role of the U.S. Historically speaking, there is no doubt that the United States has played a leading, consequential role in shaping global action on climate. Extraordinary State Department teams across multiple administrations have shown the best of what the U.S. has to offer in three important ways: First, U.S. negotiators have played a singular role in conceptualizing and advancing the framework for global action. State hosted the first round of negotiations that led to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. And the U.S. climate team has been hard at work ever since. No country was more influential in designing the paradigm-shifting Paris Agreement, with its science-based temperature limitation goal, emissions commitments that are nationally determined, and a nuanced approach that attracted global participation. And we have played a critical role in shaping agreements and decisions, in this forum as well as others, that are setting the direction for decades to come. Second, the United States has led efforts to build out a network of multilateral alliances, platforms, and partnerships to deliver on ever-evolving climate goals. These include bodies like the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, which works to address short-lived climate pollutants; the Clean Energy Ministerial; the Systematic Observations Financing Facility, Sue Biniaz is currently the State Department’s principal deputy special envoy for climate. As the lead climate lawyer for the United States from 1989 through 2016, she played a central role in all major international climate negotiations, including the 2015 Paris Agreement. During her tenure as a deputy legal adviser, she supervised the Treaty Office and issues related to East Asian affairs, Western Hemisphere affairs, the environment, law of the sea, human rights and refugees, law enforcement, and private international law. Prior to that, she led the department’s legal office for oceans, environment, and science as well as the legal office for European and Canadian affairs. Between 2017 and her return to the department in 2021, Ms. Biniaz taught at Yale University, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago and was a senior fellow at the UN Foundation. She continues to be a senior fellow and lecturer at Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs.
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