Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement is vintage Trump: loud, belligerent, and ultimately pointless. Here’s why Donald Trump’s political adversaries ought to be celebrating.
- Paris was toothless: voluntary, and non-binding. It wasn’t a “deal”, no matter what Trump called it, any more than his usual “deals” were binding. That’s why Obama didn’t need the Senate to ratify it.
- Trump cannot begin implementing his “decision” until November 2019, and thereafter lies a waiting period of a year. So we aren’t going anywhere yet, but he has saddled the GOP with a backwards anti-business mentality handed his adversaries an actionable, galvanizing issue for both the 2018 and 2020 elections.
- The decision is spectacularly anti-business coming from a man who is supposed to be a master manager representing a party that puts business first. Trump just destroyed both of those positions. 21st century corporations from the Fortune 500 to Main Street--and their investors--are walking.
- The decision has galvanized measurable competitive action on the ground in US companies and cities.
- Non-compliance with Paris was an inevitable problem in the Agreement. Non-compliance with Trump will prove to be an advantage. With a day of his Rose Garden nonsense three state governors announced the United States Climate Alliance, moving this out of the realm of intentions and morality and down to state versus state action, rapid evolution and sharing of best practices, and empirical standards.
- Not incidentally, insulting the world makes Trump an economic disaster for American tourism. Let’s see how long the Red States like that.
Trump is proving himself to be the Republican Party’s biggest mistake. He isn’t a statesman, or a businessman, or a manager, or a leader. His sole agenda is to pitch theatrical tantrums and insult his adversaries. Exiting Paris in his fantasy universe is pure Trump, but in the real world it’s empty and self-defeating. And it ties Trump more closely with a constituency that the Republicans desperately need to outgrow. It’s another Trump rally, a gesture of mindlessness for a constituency that puts mindlessness above reason and noise above proof. Meanwhile Trump attacks science and practical capitalism that are proven, and writes a vast rubber check to the angry, desperate voters that he and the GOP need.
It’s always to our credit when the United States sets an example of moral leadership in the world, but morality isn’t going to undo climate damage. Trump just moved this from morality into action, where he and his side are already at the disadvantage. Leaving Paris in place would have been the crafty thing for him to do if he wanted to promote fossil fuel. He could have used it as a campaign issue in 2018 and provoked the useful rage of his base. At the peak of GOP power in government he's discrediting and disabling the GOP from within. He just handed the Liberals a way to prove that they do what the Conservatives don’t do: conserve.