President Donald Trump has managed to create an angry and divided America – with the populous focused on his possible impeachment, worries over trade agreements and a looming recession, just to name a few issues prominent in the media.
But the climate crisis has taken a backseat to most people, and the fact that Trump will begin the process of pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Pact will hardly garner a blip on the public’s radar.
At an energy conference in Pittsburgh a week ago, the president bragged about surging U.S. natural gas and crude oil output, his efforts to roll back regulations on energy industries, and his administration’s intention to pull the United States from the 2015 international climate agreement.
And as the Trump administration is well aware, by formally submitting a letter to the United Nations on Monday, November 4, stating his intention to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, he will need to wait one year before it becomes official. In other words, it will become official one day after the 2020 presidential election, according to the Associated Press.
The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement
The Paris Climate Agreement is the first pact to commit all nations to limiting global warming caused by emissions from burning coal, oil and gas. A total of 196 countries endorsed the agreement, and if Trump succeeds in pulling the U.S. out of the agreement, it will leave this country and Syria as the only outliers on the planet.
Andrew Light, a former Obama State Department climate negotiator now at the nonprofit World Resources Institute says Trump’s withdrawal from the climate pact will hurt global efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. Keep in mind that behind China, the United States is the second-biggest climate polluter and the world’s largest economy.
“Global objectives can’t be met unless everybody does their part and the U.S. has to play the game,” said Appalachian State University environmental sciences professor Gregg Marland, who is part of a global effort to track carbon dioxide emissions. “We’re the second-biggest player. What happens to the game if we take our ball and go home?”
The penalty for the U.S. “is not in economic loss. The penalty is in shame, in discrediting U.S. leadership,” Jake Jacoby, who co-founded the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change says.
