After Thursday’s announcement that the U.S. is pulling out of the Paris Accord on climate change, it’s unclear who is suffering the most from gassy, hot air — the world, or Donald Trump.
Trump says he wants a “better deal” for the U.S., but the Paris Accord is non-binding with each country submitting its own plans. The Obama administration submitted the U.S. plan, but it’s always been subject to change.
Trump, unilaterally, could make any changes.
But it’s far more dramatic to just make a big deal over pulling out of the landmark Paris Accord, and then asking to renegotiate. That’s the kind of thing Trump does best: executive grandstanding.
Of course, no countries involved in the accord have expressed any interest in re-negotiating the non-binding agreement. Trump has just carelessly ditched a working framework that puts the U.S. outside the mainstream when it comes to global environmental policy.
Thus, we’re left with something more dangerous than anything afflicting the polar ice caps — Trump’s hot air.
The Washington Post’s Fact-Checker column went through the president’s statements in his climate deal pullout speech, and shows Trump’s basic misunderstanding of the accord. For example, would China or India really be allowed to build additional coal plants when the U.S. can’t? That would be sort of unfair if you love coal plants or coal jobs, and Trump made that case.
