Today, the United States is still a party to the Paris Agreement. Tomorrow, the United States will still be a party to the Paris Agreement. Next week, next month, next year, the United States will still be a party to the Paris Agreement, regardless of President Trump\u2019s announcement at the White House on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Sure, Trump announced, with a dramatic pause, that \u201cTherefore, in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate accord.\u201d It\u2019s unclear whether the president understands that, despite his proclamation, the United States will still be a party to the Agreement. On a\u00a0call with reporters, Christiana Figueres, former head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and one of the main architects of the Paris Agreement, made it clear\u00a0that \u201cthe White House has no understanding of how an international treaty works.\u201d Trump suggested many times that the United States\u00a0was \u201cgetting out,\u201d but would start renegotiating to \u201cget a deal that\u2019s fair.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has turned the next election into a referendum on climate change.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact is that there is no such thing as today withdrawing and then renegotiating,\u201d said Figueres. France, Germany, and Italy released a joint statement almost immediately echoing this point: \u201cWe firmly believe that the Paris Agreement cannot be renegotiated.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, the earliest the United States\u00a0can legally submit its \u201cintent to withdraw\u201d would be on November 5, 2019, and the soonest the United States\u00a0can withdraw would one be year after that. (\u201cNot a day before then,\u201d said Figueres.) Trump\u2019s call for withdrawal was nothing more than \u201cvacuous political melodrama,\u201d as Figueres put it. \u201cThere is no legal basis to what we heard today [from President Trump]. It is fundamentally a political message, period.\u201d<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s not pretend, though, that Trump\u2019s announcement doesn\u2019t have carry any significance. When the president of the world\u2019s largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases and world\u2019s largest economy announces that it is retreating from global cooperation on the gravest global threat, the political implications are very real. So it\u2019s a sad turn for America, but not for the most obvious reasons. Practically speaking, America\u2019s share of heat-trapping emissions aren\u2019t likely to be much affected by this alleged \u201cwithdrawal.\u201d The country\u2019s pledges to the Paris Agreement, like everyone else\u2019s, are voluntary, and we\u2019ve known since election night that President Trump was going to do all he could to throw a lifeline to the failing coal industry and do everything in his power to drill as much oil and gas as possible. His hopes to dismantle the Clean Power Plan are well documented, and Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt has been working hard at this for months now already.<\/p>\n
Rather, it\u2019s a sad day for America because of what Trump\u2019s uninformed, ignorant announcement signals for America\u2019s priorities in a global civilization and for our country\u2019s standing in the world. It would be hard to put it better than Bill McKibben did in a New York Times<\/em> op-ed Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n As for America\u2019s standing in the world, the diplomatic and economic impacts of Trump\u2019s climate snub will be severe. International forums like the G7, the G20, and NATO all provide vital services to the United States, from trade agreements to intelligence sharing to international security efforts, and all of these alliances take climate change very seriously. Unlike the United States, which is pretty unique globally to have fostered a deep controversy about the realities of climate science\u2014ginned up by the cable news favored by our dealbreaker in chief\u2014even conservative leaders of our most important allies consider climate change a real and present danger.<\/p>\n Now, Trump is making a public display of breaking America\u2019s promise on climate. \u201cThe blow to the international credibility of the United States, can really not be underestimated,\u201d said Figueres\u00a0,\u201cwhen you have a head of state that stands up in front of the cameras of the world and makes statements that are factually so incorrect.\u201d<\/p>\n R. Nicholas Burns, a former under secretary of state in the administration of George W. Bush, was even more direct, saying recently of leaving the Agreement, \u201cI can\u2019t think of anything more destructive to our credibility.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Already, foreign leaders are condemning Trump\u2019s announcement, and stepping up to replace the United States as global leaders on climate. On Friday morning, China\u2019s premier joined the presidents of the European Council and European Commission to release a joint statement, reaffirming their commitment to the Paris accord and to \u201csignificantly intensify their political, technical, economic and scientific cooperation on climate change and clean energy.\u201d This cooperation between the EU and China foretells a new world order when it comes to climate diplomacy and global decarbonization efforts, not to mention the race to reap the benefits of a burgeoning clean energy economy.<\/p>\n Newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron already invited American scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs who are disappointed or displaced by Trump\u2019s policies to come to France, where they would find good, meaningful work on \u201cconcrete solutions to climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Trump seems to believe that leaving the Paris Agreement will save American jobs, but most evidence and economic analyses says the opposite. Also on the press call, California Governor Jerry Brown said that \u201cCalifornia\u2019s economy and America\u2019s economy is boosted by the Paris Agreement.\u201d Brown boasted that because of (not despite)\u00a0having some of the country\u2019s most stringent climate programs, \u201cthe California economy last year increased 40 percent\u00a0faster than the rest of the country, following policies even tougher than what Paris is calling for.\u201d<\/p>\n Thankfully, most of the decisions that really matter happen at different levels of government.<\/p>\n Brown\u2019s account is encouraging, but the potential tragedy of Trump\u2019s announcement is that it will discourage other states from following California\u2019s lead, as state governments without strong leadership can be beholden to powerful fossil fuel companies they host. Renewable energy and climate solution technologies are projected to create $19 trillion in wealth by midcentury, and those are spoils that Trump risks forfeiting for Americans.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a reason that major investors and Fortune 500 CEOs were all aggressively lobbying the White House over the past few months to stay committed to the deal, and to clean energy fortunes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Mohamed Adow of Christian Aid put Trump\u2019s fossilized vision into a tidy historical perspective:<\/p>\n One nice thing about the U.S. Constitution, especially when you\u2019ve got a climate denier in chief in the White House, is that it leaves a lot up to the states.\u00a0\u201cThankfully, most of the decisions that really matter happen at different levels of government,\u201d said Andrew Steer, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute.<\/p>\n Less than an hour after Trump\u2019s announcement, the governors of Washington, New York, and California announced that they were starting up an alliance of states who\u00a0remain committed to delivering on the U.S.\u2019s emissions reductions pledges to the Paris Agreement. \u201cThis is an insane move by this president,\u201d said Governor\u00a0Brown of California, calling it \u201cdeviant behavior from the highest office in the land.\u201d<\/p>\n Later in the day, a separate group of mayors, governors, businesses, and institutions, shepherded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, announced that they were negotiating with the UNFCCC to formally join as a party to the Agreement to spite Trump. Though it\u2019s unlikely that they will be allowed to formally join\u2014the UNFCCC only allows nations as parties\u2014it raises the prospect of the United States, through subnational actions, actually meeting the Paris Agreement targets without any support or approval from\u00a0the White House at all. And because the United States\u00a0will still technically be a party to the Agreement until at least November 2020, these states and cities have the opportunity to prove how painless it could be to achieve our Paris promises.<\/p>\n Finally, as we look toward\u00a02020, there\u2019s this incredible coincidence: The timeline for America\u2019s formal withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will\u00a0be on November 4, 2020; the next presidential election will be held on November 3, 2020. And just like that, Trump has turned the next election into a referendum on climate change.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n RL Miller, co-founder of Climate Hawks Vote, said it best: \u201cTrump\u2019s \u2018fuck you\u2019 to the world redoubles our determination to end his regime. We will take back Congress in 2018, expose him for the traitor and grifter that he is, and elect climate candidates up and down the ballot, culminating in the election of a climate hawk president on November 3, 2020 to restore America\u2019s place in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n US President Donald Trump announces his decision to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Accords in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, on June 1, 2017. Trump complained that the deal, which was signed under his predecessor President Barack Obama, gives other countries an unfair advantage over US industry and destroys American jobs. Photo via SAUL LOEB\/AFP\/Getty Images.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today, the United States is still a party to the Paris Agreement. Tomorrow, the United States will still be a party to the Paris Agreement. Next week, next month, next year, the United States will still be a party to the Paris Agreement, regardless of President Trump\u2019s announcement at the White House on Thursday. Sure,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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We can still stop climate change.<\/h3>\n