The lack of US leadership on Climate Change is a very big deal. For one thing, it drives hard-right populism.
1) Climate change is driving immigration, which puts more pressure on the countries receiving more migrants.
https://unfccc.int/news/climate-change-is-a-key-driver-of-migration-and-food-insecurity
This has helped fuel the populist paranoia in Poland, Hungary, Scandinavia, Germany, The Netherlands,--and France-- and so on.
2) Climate change is causing countries like France (and many others) to institute carbon taxes, but also to trigger revolts against carbon taxes, such as the current mess.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/frances-protesters-are-part-of-a-global-backlash-against-climate-change-taxes/2018/12/04/08365882-f723-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html?utm_term=.678fb02813553)
3) The lack of US participation generates a "why us?" response. The US may be keeping pace with other countries in reducing the carbon footprint, but that has to do with access to natural gas/fracking. The lack of leadership diminishes willingness to participate elsewhere. It's typical Trump. He has no idea how US policy stances affect behavior in other countries, or the impact.
From Politico:
www.politico.com/...
But does that point of view hold up after 2016? The populist demons Trump has unleashed—revanchist in outlook, conspiratorial in the extreme, given to frequent expressions of white nationalism and antisemitism—bear uncanny resemblance to the Populist movement that Hofstadter described as bearing a fascination with “militancy and nationalism … apocalyptic forebodings … hatred of big businessmen, bankers, and trusts … fears of immigrants … even [the] occasional toying with anti-Semitic rhetoric.
Carbon taxes that exclude the US and the Trumpian anti-immigration stance give rise to more hard-right populism. And the recent evidence of Antarctic patterns that lead to higher oceans and changes in precipitation patterns will just generate more of this. One can even make a pretty good case that the Syrian Civil War was triggered by climate change-generated migration. And The National Geographic did, back in 2015.
news.nationalgeographic.com/…
Climate Change Helped Spark Syrian War, Study Says
RESEARCH PROVIDES FIRST DEEP LOOK AT HOW GLOBAL WARMING MAY ALREADY INFLUENCE ARMED CONFLICT.
A severe drought, worsened by a warming climate, drove Syrian farmers to abandon their crops and flock to cities, helping trigger a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, according to a new study published Monday.
The research provides the most detailed look yet at how climate change may already be helping spark violent political unrest.
The lack of American leadership is an incredibly big deal:
www.aol.com/…
TRUMP CALLS FOR ENDING THE ‘RIDICULOUS’ PARIS AGREEMENT IN WAKE OF FRENCH PROTESTS.
“Very sad day & night in Paris. Maybe it’s time to end the ridiculous and extremely expensive Paris Agreement and return money back to the people in the form of lower taxes? The U.S. was way ahead of the curve on that and the only major country where emissions went down last year!” he tweeted Saturday.
In another tweet hours prior, he wrote: “The Paris Agreement isn’t working out so well for Paris. Protests and riots all over France. People do not want to pay large sums of money, much to third world countries (that are questionably run), in order to maybe protect the environment. Chanting ‘We Want Trump!’ Love France.”
Only country with emissions down, of course, because of access to natural gas and fracking (with all of its own environmental problems). And the leadership issue is incredibly important: if the USA won’t participate in the sacrifices needed to reduce carbon emissions, people in other nations will take this as a signal not to bother.
We also have massive spending ahead of us on infrastructure, with climate change and technological change playing key roles in what we need. With a $trillion deficit and Trump giving confused and incoherent support for infrastructure, we aren’t likely to do what we need. State and local governments don’t have the funding capacity.
And, of course, the timing of climate change disasters seems clearly to be accelerating, giving us less time to fight emission sufficiently and to fight the magnitude of warming and ocean rise. Thus, the lack of leadership from the US at this juncture becomes even more important.
Bottom line: Trends multiply and compound, and the damage being done by Trump will be part of that. And, unfortunately, his timing sucks. And, if the environmental impact becomes irreversible, Trump will become the greatest mass murderer in history. That’s a difficult concept, I know, but we need it to wake people up to the impending crisis.
There is so much more. But this is a start. And the subject has to be extremely high on the list of topics for the House Democrats in next year’s hearings. Right after Russia and corruption, I think. It has to be raised to a subject level about future deaths, impact on all lifestyles, link with immigration, and link with extremist political philosophies.
With all of this, for the first time I am wondering whether I want my son and his fiance to have children. I never wondered about that before.