Trump did as he promised, walked us out of the Paris Accord.
I get the concern for us remaining "in" when the agreement has 200 nations agreeing, I do.
But in the end, this was the right move.
First, this was always a deal designed to hurt the US more than anyone else, which is why everyone else was so willing to sign up. This was always going to "level the playing field" and redistribute massive wealth, mostly from the US to the rest of the world. India was going to get something like $2.5 trillion (with a T) in subsidies, and other nations got huge amounts as well, while the US got to pay those bills AND reduce our emissions by strangling our economy.
second, it was already known that the environmentalists were gearing up to use this accord to take the US to court to try to enforce more stringent standards and maintain Obama's push toward ending the fossil fuel industry entirely. If we remained tied to it they'd have their case, but by walking away they have no legal grounds.
While I get wanting to be "at the table", there's not a really a way for this to somehow exclude us from anything else we want to discuss or address. If we want to address these things there are plenty of ways to do it without having to agree to standards that are unfair to us.
IMO this is no different than Kyoto, which was rejected by the Senate by something like 99 to 1, and the Iran deal, which was also agreed to by everyone else only b/c it was such a horrid deal for the US. Obama got his deals done by making them so good for the other sides that they had no choice but to agree. Lousy way to do business.
From my cursory read on this agreement, it basically rests on taking a lot of people at their word. China is supposed to peak out CO2 levels by 2030, and the assumptions that show that such commitment would reduce CO2 levels for them to any great degree are based on them a) keeping that promise, and b) committing to the plans now to curb those emissions so that the curve works out that way.
But the Chinese economy is naturally shifting more to services, and growing at slower rates, so they are largely committing to changes that will happen without them having to really hammer their economy. Further, the have to make changes b/c their air is becoming unbreathable, and people are starting to grumble, and that matters more than what Westerners think.
The economic reality is that the US, for various political reasons, would be very likely to meet its requirements under this accord, while most other nations that are major polluters have little chance of really meeting their goals, and there is no penalty for them to miss those goals.
This would let Russia, China, India etc. all talk about their goals, then explain how they are working hard as the goals slip, all the while the US is losing economically to them. With no enforcement mechanism the "level playing field" only works if we all think the totalitarian governments of Russi and China would take these steps, and if developing nations like India with mouths to feed would do so as well.
I just don't see why we sign up for an agreement where we will be all but forced to keep our end (through judicial action if nothing else) but there's no way to leverage the others. Thus even "sitting at the table" leaves us very exposed.
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