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Trump Announces US Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord (reuters.com)
It's official. President Donald Trump announced today that the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, following through on a pledge he made during the presidential campaign. Trump said the Paris agreement "front loads costs on American people. 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 on terms that are fair to the United States," the president said. "We are getting out. But we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that's fair. And if we can, that's great." Trump said that the United States will immediately "cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris accord" and what he said were "draconian financial" and other burdens imposed on the country by the accord.
This means that Elon Musk will leave Trump's Business Advisory Council. On Wednesday, Musk said he did "all he could to advise directly to Trump." (Update: Elon Musk is staying true to his words. Following the announcement, Musk tweeted, "Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.")
Twenty-five companies, including Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, HP, Microsoft, Salesforce, Morgan Stanley, Intel signed on to a letter which was published on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal today arguing in favor of climate pact.
Update: Former president Barack Obama said the U.S. "joins a small handful of nations that reject the future."
Also, the New York Times points out that despite Trump's public statements, the U.S. can't officially leave the Paris climate agreement until 2020.
This means that Elon Musk will leave Trump's Business Advisory Council. On Wednesday, Musk said he did "all he could to advise directly to Trump." (Update: Elon Musk is staying true to his words. Following the announcement, Musk tweeted, "Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.")
Twenty-five companies, including Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, HP, Microsoft, Salesforce, Morgan Stanley, Intel signed on to a letter which was published on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal today arguing in favor of climate pact.
Update: Former president Barack Obama said the U.S. "joins a small handful of nations that reject the future."
Also, the New York Times points out that despite Trump's public statements, the U.S. can't officially leave the Paris climate agreement until 2020.
We get to join Nicaragua and Syria in not being part of the Paris Climate Accord. And Nicaragua didn't sign it because they think it doesn't go far enough.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Trump ran on this position.. I'm not surprised he's doing this... Like him or not, you have to admit that he generally tries to do what he promises...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I've heard rumblings about states like California and New York entering a multi-state compact towards meeting the Paris climate goals. IANAL but AFAIK this sort of agreement is perfectly constitutional.
Finding God in a Dog
Every country that remains a signatory under the Paris Accord, and upholds its respective commitments, has the right to impose unilateral tariffs on the USA to cover the economic and social impacts resulting from the USA's impacts on the climate.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Trump doesn't believe the environment is something that ought (or needs) to be protected. He's also a fucking idiot who will never be convinced he wears no clothes when his gut tells him different. Now can we have something that we don't know?
Do you really think that the Paris climate deal was the major reason that American consumers decided to install rooftop solar or buy electric or hybrid vehicles?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Agreed. Paris is a top down thing. Letting companies develop green energy sources and consumers adopt them is a bottom up. Top down rarely works unless there is a consensus in society, which for climate change there isn't. That said I'd like that the government stimulates research in green energy sources.
Especially since one of the most polluting group of people just decided to opt themselves out.
In the mean time China is displaying more goodwill to the world than you country is.
And what is "it really is". Virtually every climatologist states CO2 emissions are increasing surface and ocean temperatures. We're already seeing the direct verifiable signs of that warming, and it will only get worse. Even without US in the Paris agreement, demand for oil is steadily shrinking, so all that really happens now is the US gives up any say on future targets, and will have to rejoin the international community on future agreements with little power save to accede to whatever the EU and China have decided. And for what? For a resource that's value is dwindling, and will never recover? For a decade or two more before oil's value is so low that it's not worth pumping out of the ground? So the Koch Brothers and a few Trump cronies can make a few more bucks, and meanwhile the very people that voted for this halfwit are the ones that get screwed the most?
Oil is dying. Natural gas will follow. Fossil fuels are the past, and good riddance, and the US will regret this for decades to come. But this is how empires die, I suppose, once morons can get to the top of the heap, what's left?
Let's imagine in ten years, when new trade agreements, particularly with large trading blocs, start demanding CO2 reductions as part of any favorable access? Let's try to imagine how much this will cost US manufacturers over the coming decades? Do you think the EU-China climate bloc is just going to let the US off the hook for paying for their towards a carbon-less future? The US will pay, and it will pay dearly, and I hope when the time comes, everyone remembers that it was the sociopaths and morons of the Republican Party, and that payback may come sooner than people think when SCOTUS starts disemboweling gerrymandering and some of these so-called "red states" start turning blue.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What happens when the remaining signatories to the climate accord decide to implement a 5% carbon tax on all products imported from countries that are not substantially meeting their obligations under the deal. One man's climate treaty is another mans trading block. I don;t care if we're in or out provided that we're making substantial efforts to clean up our environment, but if we're out then we don't get to say how the block operates.
Nullius in verba
"Two things only the people anxiously desire - Bread and Circuses."
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
This just in, belligerent nations also understand the value of global virtue-signalling.
China and India are the ONLY ones that matter in terms of global emissions. They still have 2 billion people between them that are dirt-poor and have yet to take part in their national economy in any meaningful way. Right now, with only 1/4 of their populations economically active, they account for over 37% of TOTAL GLOBAL EMISSIONS.
The US, with 350m people and 99% economic engagement accounts for 16% and decreasing. China and India will continue growing, and their overall percentage will increase dramatically in just 5 years.
Per-capita use isn't an argument either, sure the US has higher per-capita use, but if you look at the actual number of economically engaged people in India and China, their per-capita use is actually higher than the US, it's just averaged out across the other 2 billion people that aren't responsible for anything more than cookfire smoke - no cars, no consumer goods, no roads, no airplane travel, because they can't afford any of those luxuries.
The US was committed to 25%+ reduction in just 7 years. China and India's pledges were next to nothing - no percentages of reductions, just vague promises to spend more on renewables and the (non-binding) promise to do 'something' by 2030. That's a pretty one-sided agreement, and the 25%+ reduction in the US would do absolutely nothing in the long-term for the world, but would hurt the US economy.
The funniest thing of all is that the Paris agreement was 100% voluntary. Each individual nation could set whatever parameters for reduction it wanted including no reduction at all. He could have just changed the numbers and marched on and no one could do anything about it.
The funny this is it takes 3 years to withdraw plus a one year wait after the 3, when he loses in 2020 the new president will be able to halt the process. Hell when the Democrats take back Congress in 2018 they will be able to halt his action. If he's just stayed in and revised the numbers no one could have stopped him and it would have been immediate.
What is this nonsense? Who called it a treaty? Where are you getting this from?
Do you even know what a treaty is? Do you know what an agreement is? Do you know what the constitution actually requires? It doesn't say: "The President is congress' little bitch and has to get approval before he says anything to anyone." Under the present circumstances that may be an unfortunate truth, but it is a truth.
I think Trump is the only leader among them that doesn't care about the politics. Committing large amounts of resources and and supporting every effort attached to climate change is modern orthodoxy and dare not be questioned, like gender identity.
Look at the focus and scorn given the two other non-signatories within this thread (and I'm guessing most don't know the reasons behind it). Since the treaty doesn't actually require a signatory to do anything, how many do you think signed just to avoid bad press? Or, as the companies listed in the summary, to get some good press?
The Paris accords are 100% voluntary with no enforcement procedure. Honestly, what's their point?
China, the world's biggest emitter, has exceeded the goals it agreed to. India has too. Much of Europe has or is at least trying hard to.
Renewables are where the jobs and money are. The agreement really helps by giving governments political capital to reduce subsidies for other forms of energy and redirect them. It also helped develop the huge market for renewable technologies, which the US is now turning away from.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Also remember that aid is not some blackhole than money disappears into.
China will say to any number of nations: "Here, have some climate impact mitigation aid money, but you must buy Chinese equipment/services with it.".
The money soon flows back to Chinese companies (after being skimmed for kickbacks and some local handling). These Chinese companies use the money to ramp up production, gaining economies of scale through what in effect is government based support that neatly does an end run around WTO state aid rules. Now, not only has the USA been locked out of these initial deals, it's locked out of the long term contracts (services, maintenance, upgrades), has lost vital mindshare in these new markets and has potentially allowed Chinese companies to undercut US prices because they've had a big whack of state aid.
Sure, you've made some coal miners temporarily happy and sold a few more #MAGA hats, but you've potentially buggered up some juicy long term markets in which America could have competed.
And that's the best case scenario, because if the agreement parties decide that more urgent action is needed, a carbon tariff on non-signatories could really cause headaches for American companies.
Given the Trump administration seems to be getting a kick out of giving the rest of the world the middle finger, I can imagine the rest of the world won't have too many qualms about sticking it to the USA in return.