For now, we no longer have Paris
By withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, President Donald Trump has let the world know that the United States no longer desires to lead. This is a bad decision — another in a series of Trump’s many bad decisions — not only for what it means for the health of the planet, but because withdrawal is a blunt statement that the United States has decided to go it alone. We no longer want to be citizens of the world. Only our nation matters. “America First,” if you will. It’s such a short-sighted, even tragic, position, one that denies reality at the expense of dangerous, nationalistic fervor.
No nation inhabiting a planet can go it alone, especially when the health of our common home is in such precarious shape. Together, the nations of the world met in Paris to decide that as a globe, the different countries would attack fossil fuel emissions so that our children and grandchildren could survive.
The genius of the Paris accord is that it left countries to seek agreed-upon voluntary goals — creating emission targets to which nations would aspire, with promised updates to follow. The impact came from the solidarity of all the nations of the world standing together, accepting the science of climate change and choosing to fight a common peril. Only Syria and Nicaragua did not sign. Syria has a civil war on its plate, and Nicaragua felt the accords did not go far enough.
Now, the United States is giving up, despite having been the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases for years. China now wears that dubious crown, but the U.S. still pollutes more than most. And, thanks to Trump, we have decided that as a nation, we are no longer responsible for helping correct the damage we have caused. This must not stand. President Trump will not back down. He is keeping a campaign promise and catering to his right-wing, science-denying base — listening to adviser Steve Bannon at the expense of good sense (even his daughter, Ivanka) and the many business leaders whose support he says he wants. This is a man who does not apologize or admit a mistake. No matter, the country is greater than the president or even the government in D.C.
Already, governors from Washington, New York and California are banding together to form the United States Climate Alliance. The country might have backed down from its 2025 target emission goals, but these big states can keep us (mostly) on track.
With their leadership, interested states can convene and take aggressive action to fight climate change, reducing fossil fuel emissions and transitioning to alternative energy sources. After all, the three trailblazing states represent more than one-fifth of U.S. Gross Domestic Product, and plan to achieve the U.S. goal of reducing emission 26 percent to 28 percent from 2005 levels, as well as meeting or exceeding the targets of the federal Clean Power Plan. The governors — Jay Inslee, Andrew Cuomo and Jerry Brown — see the alliance as a place to share information and best practices. Even Republican governors are joining.
New Mexico, with its extractive-industry-loving governor, likely will not be joining immediately (but there is an election in 2018) and we would bet that cities and counties will step up. Santa Fe has aggressive policies regarding the use of renewable energies and has set up the Sustainable Santa Fe Commission, with plans for the city to become carbon-neutral by 2040. We don’t need the United States government to keep its Paris promises for those goals to be reached.
Private business, too, will be an important resource now that our federal government has stepped aside. These business oligarchs, supposedly Trump’s friends, were mostly outraged at his decision to back out of the Paris agreement. Unlike Trump, business leaders realize that a lot of money will be made in a new energy economy. They also realize that climate change damages profits. As Wired put it: “From Facebook to Wal-Mart and now even Exxon (until recently helmed by Trump’s Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson), businesses increasingly view sustainability as critical to their bottom lines.”
Tesla’s Elon Musk, who had been advising Trump, tweeted after hearing the decision: “Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.”
Instead, he and other industry leaders will continue reducing their businesses’ carbon footprint. States and cities will join in, keeping the United States close to its emissions goal. The actual departure from the accord will take time to negotiate, and a new president in 2020 could render Trump’s decision meaningless. The environment is now front and center as an issue in the next presidential election.
In the meantime, everyday citizens, business owners, state and local governments must participate. Everyone must join to have a prayer of meeting the Paris agreement’s goal of preventing an increase in global temperatures of more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Losing the leadership of the United States will make that task more difficult.
However, the people of the United States are not its president. He withdrew from the Paris agreement. The rest of us must choose to remain, in deeds if not on paper. Leadership will come from the bottom up now. The president has chosen to abdicate our nation’s responsibility to the world. Such are the consequences of elections.