The Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, is illuminated in green to celebrate the entry into force of the Paris Agreement, the most ambitious climate change agreement in history, on November 4, 2016. [Photo by Jean-Baptiste Gurliat/ Mairie de Paris]
“Today the United States began the process to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Per the terms of the Agreement, the United States submitted formal notification of its withdrawal to the United Nations. The withdrawal will take effect one year from delivery of the notification.”
As noted in his June 1, 2017 remarks, President Trump made the decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement because of the unfair economic burden imposed on American workers, businesses, and taxpayers by U.S. pledges made under the Agreement.
The United States has reduced all types of emissions, even as we grow our economy and ensure our citizens’ access to affordable energy. Our results speak for themselves: U.S. emissions of criteria air pollutants that impact human health and the environment declined by 74% between 1970 and 2018. U.S. net greenhouse gas emissions dropped 13% from 2005-2017, even as our economy grew over 19 percent.
The Accord’s rules prevent a nation from formally withdrawing until three years after the agreement first came into effect, which was 2016 for the United States. President Trump’s major campaign promise will be finalized 4 November 2020.
The Competence of Donald Trump
Even if you believe the warnings of the climate alarm movement and that the Paris Accord was necessary “to avert all-but-certain climate catastrophe, there is still a problem,” notes Francis Menton in the Manhattan Contrarian.
The problem is that the Paris accord will not avert the climate catastrophe, or even change anything measurably — even if you accept the alarmist models at face value. If you take the U.N.’s models of the relationship between GHGs and temperature, and factor in full implementation of the Paris accords, including all U.S. and European GHG reductions but also increases from the third world, you find reductions in projected temperature increases out to the year 2100 that are so small as to be at the very margin of measurability.
Massive Impoverishment of the American People
“President Barack Obama signed up for the intentional energy impoverishment of the American people on a massive scale to achieve absolutely nothing with respect to the climate,” continues the Manhattan Contrarian.
In other words, President Barack Obama signed up for the intentional energy impoverishment of the American people on a massive scale to achieve absolutely nothing with respect to the climate. It is hard to think of anything more incompetent. With a principal job of avoiding major costly blunders for the American people and the American economy, Obama committed an obvious error likely of multi-trillion dollar magnitude. Trump has identified the issue and has reversed the error. This is just simple, basic competence.
Read much more from Francis Menton, including a chart illustrating the point from Bjorn Lomborg, via WattsUpWithThat here.
Debbie Young
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