As temperatures rise around the world and extreme weather escalates, Donald Trump has initiated the official process for the U.S. to formally exit the Paris Climate Agreement by 2020, a process that will conclude just a day after the next presidential election. Doing so will make America the only country in the whole planet to not participate in the international accord.
The Paris Agreement
The agreement was originally signed during the UN climate change conference in Paris in 2015, eventually getting all world leaders on board to reduce greenhouse emissions that would devastate the environment and make the planet uninhabitable by humans. The U.S. itself agreed to cut its harmful emissions and overall pollution by at least 26% from their 2005 levels by 2025. Most other countries are aiming to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
A climate-change denier’s mantra
However, Trump has long either ignored or outright denied that climate change is even happening, going as far as to call it a Chinese hoax (it’s worth noting that over 99% of the scientific community agrees that man-made climate change is very much real). On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the initiation of the exit process, claiming that remaining in the agreement would entail an “unfair economic burden imposed on American workers, businesses and taxpayers.”
That’s been this administration’s mantra for years regarding the climate crisis. Problem is, they’re demonstrably wrong. For one, the U.S., together with China and India, accounts for most of the human-driven carbon pollution in the world, totalling over 17,575 million metric tons of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels in 2017 alone. So, it makes sense that the U.S. should do more about this problem than almost any other nation on Earth.
But there’s also the actual economy. Trump’s move is, in fact, risking the medium and long-term economic stability of the U.S. by moving away from environmental commitments and renewable energies, promoting the coal industry instead. As Senator Tom Carper, from the Senate environmental panel, argued, he’s actually missing out on a “tremendous economic opportunity” by not leading the country towards the most profitable markets in the coming decades.
Reactions to the news
Trump’s decision was met with widespread criticism from the public and several prominent figures around the world. Nate Hultman, director of the University of Maryland’s center for global sustainability, specified that the president’s move to withdraw from the Paris agreement “is supported in reality by only about 30% of the economy and 35% of the population.”
The energy director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, Jean Su, said: “America is the number one historical contributor to the climate emergency wreaking havoc in burning California, the flooded Southeast and the rest of the world. The next president must repay this extraordinary climate debt by rapidly moving America to 100% clean energy and financing the decarbonization of the Global South.”
Senator Carper also pointed out that: “Once again, President Trump is abandoning our global allies for the sake of misplaced political gain. Now America stands alone – nearly 200 countries have joined this global commitment to fighting climate change, even global pariahs like North Korea and civil war-torn countries like Syria.” And he’s right.
The truth behind Trump’s “America first” rhetoric
Trump has promoted over and over the rhetoric that he’s doing this for his country, as he incongruously rallies his base under the banner of “America first.” Yet, for all his words, that’s not what he’s actually doing. He is putting the older American generation first, at the expense of every younger and future American generation—not to mention the rest of the world.
Indeed, the only people Trump is putting first are those who won’t live long enough to face the consequences, and that’s as far from a true “America first” as it gets. He’s leaving the vast majority of Americans to suffer, which certainly doesn’t make him a patriot.
So, with that in mind, it is important to consider that while it might take a year for Trump to get the U.S. out, it could take as little as one month for the next president to get the country back on the right track. As Nobel laureate Al Gore noted, “Even if [Trump] follows through, it would take just 30 days for a new president to get us back in. This decision is ultimately in the hands of the voters.” It is crucial, therefore, for responsible and knowledgeable voters to make their voices heard during the next presidential election.
Now more than ever, the future of America and the planet rests on your shoulders.
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