Your Electricity Bill was Just Hiked in . . . Paris!

The new Paris climate change treaty is yet another claim on U.S. sovereignty by bureaucrats negotiating over thick oaken tables with iced bottled water at their elbows — and the interests of American workers the farthest things from their tiny minds.

If fully implemented, the new global accord will add hundreds of dollars to the average American household’s annual power bill, according to experts who have studied the issue. And that’s just part of the additional costs that would be heaped on American taxpayers and consumers.

An exact estimate is not yet possible, because the language of the Paris pact is so vague. Hailed by the White House as historic, the framework agreed to by nearly 200 countries commits the world to cutting carbon emissions by enough to keep the planet from warming by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (34.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. Even though it’s been steadily cooling for years.

But it leaves the details of how to reach benchmarks to individual countries. The United States would have to figure out a way to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent of 2005 levels by 2030. That means less coal, which is cheap, and more renewable energy sources, which are expensive.

“If you want to use less of the least expensive forms of energy, you’re going to have to make electricity more expensive,” said Chip Knappenberger, director of the Center for the Study of Science at the libertarian Cato Institute. “Forcing more renewables in the mix necessarily is going to make energy more expensive.”

The Obama administration already had committed to cutting the U.S. carbon emissions from utilities by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clear Power Plan. A study last month by NERA Economic Consulting calculates the cost to businesses and consumers of that plan at $39 billion per year. That would result in an annual average increase of electricity costs alone for consumers of between 10 percent to 30 percent from 2022 and 2032.

A November 2014 study by the Virginia-based consulting firm Energy Ventures Analysis projected power and gas costs for residential, commercial and industrial customers would be $284 billion higher in 2020, a 60 percent increase from 2012. That translates to a $680 increase in electricity and home gas heating bills for the average American household.

Sterling Burnett, a researcher at the Heartland Institute, said estimates of the Clean Power Plan do not take into account increases in transportation costs or the impact on industrial output, both of which likely would be affected by the Paris agreement.

“The Clean Power Plan only takes us part of the way there,” he said.

And, there are other costs. The preamble of the Paris agreement sets a goal for a $100-billion fund where rich countries would pay developing nations to offset the costs of transitioning to cleaner forms of energy and help deal with the impacts of a warmer planet.

Secretary of State John Kerry has pledged to double the country’s $400 million per year donation by 2020, in addition to an earlier $3 billion promise. The total annual cost would be about $16 billion by 2020, although Congress would have to approve such expenditures.

Todd Myers, environmental director at the Seattle-based Washington Policy Center, predicted that an expensive regulatory structure would add another cost — American jobs. He pointed to last month’s announcement by Alcoa that it is idling two aluminum plants in Washington State. They would have had to spend $2.8 million annually to buy carbon credits under the state’s scheme to combat global warming.

Accelerating the move of industrial production offshore would cost jobs and tax revenue while achieving nothing for global carbon emissions.

Myers said accelerating the move of industrial production offshore would cost jobs and tax revenue while achieving nothing for global carbon emissions, since production would continue elsewhere.

“If you want to reach those targets (set by the Paris conference), you can’t do it regulatorily,” he said.

Myers said the United States already has reduced carbon emissions over the past decade. He said that is partly due to the long economic slump and partly because abundant natural gas, which emits about half of the carbon of coal, has become cheaper.

Developing countries need only stay the course.

Knappenberger, of the Cato Institute, said the goals set in Paris represent “business as usual” for the world’s developing nations.

“China and India have not really committed to action that’s much different than the path they were on,” he said. “I don’t really see it as much of an economic burden, especially on the global level … When push comes to shove, (developing countries) are probably going to opt to further develop.”