In December 2015, all but two countries on earth - Syria and Nicaragua - signed the Paris climate agreement. It was a landmark achievement in which an international coalition promised to put forth their best efforts to cut back on global emissions and try to slow down the effects of climate change. It was a crowning achievement for President Barack Obama.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement. The agreement hasn’t even hit two years and already one of the most important players has declared they’re not interested. Mind you, it’s not because there’s any international doubt about the legitimacy of climate change. There’s not even, necessarily, massive doubt in the United States - 68 percent of Americans agree climate change is caused by human activity.
But the leader of the free world, who happens to be a moron, disagrees. Because Donald Trump believes in conspiracies and doesn’t understand science, the third largest country on the planet and the second greatest emitter of carbon emissions has now decided it will not participate in an international agreement to save the planet. It’s time to sell my house fast and move to Europe.
This has angered not just ordinary Americans, but corporate America too. CEO’s of Google, Apple, Facebook have all come out against the move. Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has quit Trump’s advisory board in protest and others in tech, including stock picker Jason Bond, have come out against the decision.
There is an extremely clear right and wrong side here. It’s American Republicans - Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell was one of 22 Republican Senators who wrote to Trump asking him to pull out - versus the world. Not even everyone in his administration supports him - daughter Ivanka Trump and secretary of state Rex Tillerson tried unsuccessfully to convince him to stay in the deal.
Democrats like Al Gore, Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama have come out in full force to criticize Trump’s decision to pull out of the agreement. So have major energy corporations, like GE CEO Jeff Immelt, who tweeted “Disappointed with today’s decision on the Paris Agreement. Climate change is real. Industry must now lead and not depend on government.”
And so have other countries. France, Germany and Italy issued a joint statement condemning Trump for pulling out and promising that their countries would redouble their efforts to cut back on emissions and slow down the effects of climate change.
And that may be the nugget of good news in this whole situation. Although Trump announcing the U.S. would pull out of the deal is a major blow, it has boosted rather than depressed international morale.
Other countries, it seems, are perfectly willing to step up and take the opportunity to prove that they can be global leaders in this matter of international significance. Companies - American companies - are announcing that they will continue to cut emissions without Trump.
To be clear, Trump is making a mistake that demonstrates his stupidity, his narrow-mindedness, his unhealthy desire for selfish competition over international cooperation and his poor decision-making skills. But even so, the international community is entirely agreed on this issue, and Trump doesn’t have the ability to stop it from moving forward with protecting the planet. All Trump is doing is leaving the American government behind in the dust; so goes his America First plan.