AS OTHERS SEE IT: The climate change dilemma

The following editorial appeared in The Rutland Herald (Vt.), on March 29, 2017:

Todd Stern, chief negotiator for the United States at the Paris climate conference, has a question for climate change deniers in the Trump administration: "What if you're wrong?"

Stern was speaking March 24 at an environmental conference in Burlington, where he described the arduous process that led to the Paris climate accord. He called the climate pact a "paradigm shift" in the global effort to curb the carbon emissions that are causing climate change. At the same time he warned of the dangers to the international effort if President Trump carries out promised actions to reverse progress on climate change achieved by the Obama administration.

Trump took one of those actions March 28, signing an executive order to roll back one of President Barack Obama's most important climate change initiatives — the Clean Power Plan. It was the rule requiring coal-burning power plants to employ technology curbing carbon emissions or shut down. Trump wants to end that mandate, freeing plants to burn coal with impunity and without regard to carbon emissions. It's part of his plan to bring jobs back to coal country. But even leaders of the coal industry say that the Trump changes are unlikely to bring back coal jobs. Coal has fallen into disfavor among power companies because of the abundance of natural gas, which is cheaper.

The Clean Power Plan, together with more stringent mileage standards for U.S. cars and trucks, formed an essential part of the climate change strategy that the United States had adopted to meet the goals of the Paris climate accord. Stern warned that for the United States to abandon its goals would cause "huge collateral damage with respect to other foreign policy goals." More than 190 nations have signed on to the Paris accord. Significantly, these include China, the largest emitter of carbon dioxide. For the United States to back out threatens to unravel the entire international effort.