Left: President Donald J. Trump announces his decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord, the Paris Agreement on June 1, 2017. Right: The illuminated Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, on November 4, 2016. (Photos: PPD/Reuters)
With his decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, President Donald J. Trump did something most politicians do not–the right thing. The President not only lived up to his image as a “blue-collar billionaire” but also showed he can listen to all views and still have the ability to separate the big picture from emotional hysteria.
The President’s address announcing his decision in the Rose Garden came after weeks of intense lobbying on behalf of millionaires and billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Cuban. When President Trump put “America First” before powerful global special interests, the house lost and Americans won.
Here are just three reasons why.
U.S. Constitution
Barack Obama did not have the authority to unilaterally negotiate and submit the entire nation to this agreement, binding or non-binding. We find it terrifying that so many people are arguing that climate change is so important that it justifies ignoring the Constitution. But let’s grant for a moment the supposition that the issue is as important as proponents claim.
As David French correctly argued, the issues importance makes the constitutional process more vital, not less.
“The constitutional process creates binding obligations that are based in broad consensus,” Mr. French wrote. “If two-thirds of senators vote to ratify a treaty, then that effectively means that a supermajority of the American people either agree or acquiesce to the nation’s commitment. It provides the basis for national action in response.”
Worth noting, Mr. French is no Trump supporter. Also worth noting, treaties not only bind the United States but all the nations involved. Non-binding agreements like the Paris Climate Agreement are easily violated by other countries, including world polluters like China and India who got a pass and a competitive advantage that would’ve disproportionately hurt American workers and businesses.
If you truly care about the environment and climate change, then you would support a treaty that binds all parties. You also want that treaty to 1) actually do what it sets out to do, and, 2) be equitable and fair.
Cost-Benefit Analysis
It you are for the Paris Climate Agreement, it doesn’t necessarily make you a good steward of the environment. It’s also true that someone can be against the Paris Climate Agreement and still be for the environment. Facts matter. Details matter. Results matter.
This agreement didn’t have the facts, the details or the results on its side.
Big media was literally hysterical after the announcement, claiming President Trump’s decision would lead to cities getting swallowed up by the oceans. John Kerry said the President wasn’t looking out for “the forgotten men and women” because “their children are going to have worse asthma in the summah [sic].”
This is irresponsible, irrational and, frankly, borderline insane.
Even if we assumed that all the models and all the data were correct, implementing the Paris Climate Agreement would not stop any of those things from happening. By their own admission, climate extremists didn’t believe the agreement went far enough.
“If the global economy isn’t fully decarbonised by 2050, keeping temperatures below 1.5 degrees is out of the question,” Jagoda Munic, the Chairperson of Friends of the Earth International wrote in 2015.
While the agreement’s impact on the climate is minimal and very much in question, the impact to the U.S. economy and American families is not.
According to the National Economic Research Associates, compliance with the terms of the Paris Climate Agreement would destroy 6.5 million industrial sector jobs, eliminate $3 trillion in gross domestic product (GDP) and cost Americans $7,000 in household income, per capita, all by 2040.
President George W. Bush dealt with similiar hysteria when he pulled the U.S. out of the Kyoto Protocol, which called for emissions to be reduced by 5.2% by 2012. The 43rd President said he took climate change “very seriously” but opposed Kyoto because “it exempts 80% of the world, including major population centers such as China and India, from compliance, and would cause serious harm to the U.S. economy.”
Sound familiar? And what was the result?
Over the next 14 years, American innovators in the free market reduced U.S. emissions to the lowest levels since 1994, beyond the Kyoto target. We did so without government intervention–that is harmful to the economy and a threat to individual and nation liberty–and at a faster pace than our European counterparts.
Europeans damaged their economies, their liberties and their national sovereignty, all for a less significant result.
Flawed Evidence
At People’s Pundit Daily, we put data above political talking points. The bottom line is that climate change proponents have relied on questionable data rarely subjected to true scrutiny either in the media or among peers. As we’ve previously reported, that was also the case with the “study” repeatedly cited during debate.
Dr John Bates, a top National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientist with an impeccable reputation, gave The Daily Mail “irrefutable evidence” that NOAA–the world’s leading source of climate change data–intentionally rushed to publish their landmark paper. It exaggerated global warming by using “unverified” data.
The timing of the release of this so-called evidence was intentional and meant to influence world leaders at the Paris Climate Change Conference. At best, it was flawed and, at worst, it was intentionally flawed.
Dr Bates, one of two Principal Scientists at the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), said the other lead author of the paper was “insisting on decisions and scientific choices that maximized warming and minimized documentation.”
Thomas Karl, who until the previous year was director of the NOAA section that produces climate data, engaged “in an effort to discredit the notion of a global warming pause, rushed so that he could time publication to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy.”
The NOAA report allegedly concluded that the “pause” or “slowdown” in global warming during the period from 1998 to the present–which was revealed by UN scientists in 2013–never actually occurred. In reality, Dr. Bates said Mr. Karl and NOAA didn’t submit the study to an internal review process, which would’ve revealed the deceit.
“They had good data from buoys. And they threw it out and ‘corrected’ it by using the bad data from ships,” Dr. Bates told The Mail. “You never change good data to agree with bad, but that’s what they did–so as to make it look as if the sea was warmer.”
Conclusion
We’ve already heard more times than we can count that the decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement now means the U.S. has abdicated world leadership. That’s rich coming from supporters of Barack Obama, who obviously don’t understand what true leadership really means.
Leadership means doing the right thing when everyone else–the cool crowd–is doing the wrong thing. It doesn’t mean going with the popular flow because you don’t have the courage to scrutinize and keep your word.
That’s what President Trump did.
The phenomena of actual “climate change” is real, whether it’s manmade or not. In fact, the latter question is largely irrelevent. The Earth’s climate radically changed before human beings inherited the planet and will continue to do so if at some point we cease to exist on it. Whether we survive relies upon whether we can transform our understanding of the issue–which has been shaped by those with vested special interests–and focus on how we will find the means to do so.
That will take real leadership, the kind President Trump just displayed when he trashed an unconstitutional, ineffective, garbage agreement that failed to address any of these realities.
