Thursday, November 17, 2016

Backing out of the Paris Agreement?

President Trump is threatening to back out of the Paris Agreement, almost a year after it was signed, and, instead, invest in a “low carbon economy at home and abroad.”

However, 360 companies and investors (including General Mills, Unilever, Starbucks, Hewlett Packard, eBay, Nike, and Hilton) have signed a letter urging Trump to continue the U.S.’s participation in the Agreement.

And if the U.S. backs out of this agreement, what is to stop other countries from doing the same?

Currently, there are about 110 nations, including the U.S., who are a part of the Paris Agreement, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions 26-28% by 2025.

And just to put into context who is making this decision, we have Donald Trump and Myron Ebell, the newly appointed lead of the Environmental Protection Agency. Both of which are skeptics of climate change.

Should Trump’s decision go through, it could mean seeing an increase in emissions due to firing up domestic coal, oil, and gas industries.

Already, Nicolas Sarkozy, former French president, has stated that if the U.S. backs out, he will “demand that Europe put in place acarbon tax at its border, a tax of 1-3%, for all products coming from the United States, if the United States doesn’t apply environmental rules that we are imposing on our companies.”

And not only that, backing out of the agreement could also affect the U.S.’s international standing.

7 comments:

  1. When it comes to Donald Trump's position on the climate change issue, I always wonder what is in his brain? He will lead one of the great countries in the world and he just presented the worst side of a leader. I am not sure if he's just burying his head in the sand or simply doing this out of "the the States' interests". "As long as I can make money from it. It's good to go." If he chooses to back out, he chooses to exacerbate the problem.

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  2. Very interesting piece! That's pretty significant - hopefully the potential economic sanctions will have some effect on our businessman-elect. I would have liked to know what the Paris Agreement was a little sooner in your article, but honestly you could have expanded on what you meant in the last sentence and I would have still been with you, reading until the end.

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  3. Trump's actions as president-elect thus far have been highly suspect. Let's hope that Mr. Trump takes into consideration the United States grand influence as a nation. As you poised in your article above, What is to stop other nations from leaving soon after? What precedent does the United States set by backing out of the agreement? Let's hope he truly reconsiders as this could be very catastrophic to Earth's climate.

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    1. "Let's hope that Mr. Trump takes into consideration the United States grand influence as a nation."
      I think it's pretty clear that President-elect Trump is a lot more isolationist than any president since Hoover.

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  4. "backing out of the agreement could also affect the U.S.’s international standing."
    This is going to be the least of the shocks to foreign affairs that a Trump Presidency might bring...

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  5. It's just so unfortunate. Two steps forward and three steps back in this case. Climate change skeptics won't listen until something disastrous happens to effect the planet's future.

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    1. You mean, disasters like the ice cap disappearing, multi-year drought, a Cat V hurricane coming within 20 miles of destroying Florida, anthrax freed from the Siberian permafrost, mass migrations from desert regions into Europe?

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