The wait is over!
There has been much speculation on what the prez will say on the Paris Agreement……we now have the answer….
President Trump announced Thursday that the US will immediately cease “all implementation” of Paris climate change accord standards, the AP reports. “In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord but [begin] negotiations to reenter either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction under terms that are fair to the United States,” Trump said, per CNN. “We’re getting out.”
While introducing Trump in the Rose Garden, Vice President Mike Pence said Trump is “choosing to put American jobs and American consumers first” with his announcement that the US will withdraw from the Paris accord. Pence praised Trump’s leadership and said Trump is “is choosing to put the forgotten men and women of America first.”
There has been applause and there have been sighs……but with all that what is next?
Here’s what else you need to know about Trump’s decision:
- First, Fortune explains the Paris climate agreement. The gist is that countries agree to work toward keeping the global average temperature from rising 3.6 degrees over the pre-industrial average, at which point scientists believe the effects of climate change would be irreversible.
- In a statement, Al Gore called Trump’s decision “reckless and indefensible.” But he adds the transition to clean energy will be continued by mayors, governors, the business community, and the American people.
- Bill McKibben, writing for the New York Times, calls withdrawing from the agreement “our nation’s dumbest act since launching the war in Iraq” and one that hurts not only civilization’s ability to survive climate change but also civilization itself by undermining both diplomacy and science.
- Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry in the Week counters that outrage over the decision is “absolute nonsense” in that the agreement was weak and ineffectual, with countries left to set their own goals for reducing emissions. (Though he also says withdrawing from it won’t do anything to add jobs in the Rust Belt.)
- President Obama says leaving the Paris climate agreement is a rejection of the future, leaving the countries that remain to “reap the benefits in jobs and industries created,” the Hill reports.
- Elon Musk is leaving Trump’s presidential advisory council over the decision, tweeting, “Climate change is real.”
- Weather.com was also, clearly, not a fan of the decision. Below a livestream of Trump’s press conference, it ran stories about “Antarctica turning green” and “California’s coast disappearing into the sea” in an effort to get the American public to care about climate change.
- Finally, Quartz reports a US not fully committed to reducing emissions may have actually hurt the climate agreement more by staying in it. “It is a club for countries who are part of a global effort to tackle dangerous climate change … The US no longer meets these admission criteria,” says a member of Ireland’s Climate Change Advisory Council.
Now you have everyone’s opinion and now mine.
Trump pulled out with hope that the conversation would change from all the stuff about the Russian connection (it will fail)…..of course he invoked the magic word……you can sell the American people any stupid idea as long as you use the word…….”JOBS”.
The agreement was self-regulating by each country…..it is non-binding…..That means that it had NO regulatory teeth….just how sis this agreement hurt American jobs? This is not a big deal but it will take the US off the table and turn over leadership to some one else…..that in my opinion is not a wise decision.
What can the world do with trump’s newest decision…..
As I have previously written, under Trump the United States has ceded whatever lingering threads of global leadership it had not already shredded by pointless wars of aggression and financial doomsday devices; we are now something of a pariah state. On climate change, it now falls to Europe, China, and India to corral this blundering, addled elephant of a nation, until our janky political machinery can eject Trump and the Republican Party from power. Here’s how they can do it.
Source: How the world can contain Trump’s climate lunacy
America cannot be first if they are not part of the conversation.
In Saner Thought 
We ARE a global community. We must work as a community and we have to be at the table always. This President has NO idea the harm he’s doing to our standing in the community.
I agree……the jobs con is his best….chuq
I am sad. The only hope is that businessmen and some state governments see the benefits of a greener way and being involved in developing green technologies that are exportable and of valuable in country – and make them money, too. Perhaps leadership from the bottom up will be America’s salvation. It certainly isn’t this current administration. As we say in America, covfefe!
Exactly….Covfefe! Trump was suppose to be from the bottom up…like I wrote…you sell anything to Americans be the mere mention of jobs….even if it is a con……chuq
Tragically so, yet, for all the bluster and “alternative facts” about job creation from the administration, how many coal miners have new jobs in mining, autoworkers with new jobs manufacturing autos and trucks in the Rust Belt, etc? Zero. Lies and smoke and mirrors. The average person is pretty average, as one cynical college pal of mine used to always say.
Jobs makes a good slogan but that is about as far as it goes…..chuq
(Though he also says withdrawing from it won’t do anything to add jobs in the Rust Belt.)
Disagree. If thousands of former coal miners go back to work they can now get off food stamps and section 8 housing and get a paycheck and pay income tax and social security. That is a savings to government and additional revenue for government. When work is available it stimulates prosperity from the local community up. The department store that left returns, the 4 empty stores at the mall reopen, a car dealership reopns, a new restaurant here and there all of which creates by-product jobs. More people become consumers again instead of just surviving. People can buy a car again. That means the rust belt goes back to work and the process I have just outlined repeats itself all over the region. It’s like 1 new job
leads to the creation of 3 others.
The problem with that is most major power companies are changing to nat gas so coal is not as important as it once was….I do not see the major jobs renewal that he sees….chuq
While this is how an economy should work…Sadly, it don’t work like that no more.
Coal mining jobs are few & far between. Even if coal use went up again, coal mining jobs wouldn’t. This is a gig that has been increasingly replaced with heavy machinery and more aggressive mining techniques. (ie Mountaintop removal)
Even if coal companies were allowed to poison every river (as it seem they’re now allowed to) and blow up whatever they want to get pockets of coal…they won’t be hiring that many workers. To be fair, it may keep layoffs at bay for while. But independent of a rise or fall in coal use, coal mining jobs are a diminishing proposition. These poor folks are fucked. No jobs AND they can’t drink the water.
But beyond that, America has been working as if there was no Paris, or Kyoto, Accord for decades. So this is actually a Zero-change situation.
There used to be a endless 100-car trains of Wyoming coal pass through my town. You barely could cross railroad tracks because they were scheduled so tightly together. Now, there are far fewer trains, with a downturn in railroad jobs and those dependent on railroad-associated work. The reality is many will have to learn new jobs or remain unemployed because the Wyoming coal trains are never going to be as numerous as they were in the 1970s-1980s.
Nat gas is cheaper and generates more profit….it is about the bottom line not the environment….chuq
That is the incentive all business people respond to. Makes Trump’s announcement empty in some regards.
Of course all his announcements are pretty empty…LOL chuq
Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
Thanx and hope you have a safe weekend….chuq
Reblogged this on saywhatumean2say and commented:
Clearly stated and easy to read. I as an American am shamed.
~~dru~~
THanx for the kind words and the re-blog…I appreciate your help….chuq
If nothing else, it means Trump kept at least on of his election pledges, to leave the Paris Agreement.
the America First argument plays well in speeches. An isolationist America doing its own thing might well appeal to many, and could even make some economic sense in the long term. But to make that idea work, America has to get out of all the other countries it wants to interfere with, or dominate.
I can’t see that happening.
Best wishes, Pete.
Profit will prevent that from ever happening….chuq