BREAKING: Trump Announces America's Withdrawal From The Paris Climate Agreement
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Lou Cypher
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It’s official: After months and months of waiting, of lunging back and forth from pro- to anti-, President Trump will take America out of the Paris agreement.
Walking out into the Rose Garden of the White House, the President told the world that “in order to fulfil my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the US will withdraw from the Paris climate accord.”
He claimed that the accord is a “bad deal,” one that is costing American jobs and will ultimately ? the US economy – something that is demonstrably untrue.
Trump said that he will look for a “better deal.”
“We will begin negotiations to re-enter the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction, on terms fair to the US – it’s businesses, workers, taxpayers,” he added. “So we’re getting out, but we’ll start to negotiate, to see if we can make a deal that’s fair. If we can that’s great, if we can’t that’s fine.”
The US will now join Syria and Nicaragua in a rather ignominious and exclusive club as the only nations that are not part of the global effort to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
This decision goes against the will of the American people, 71 percent of which support the Paris agreement. It goes against the will of more than 800 colleges and universities, 1,000 American companies, and even traditionally fossil fuel-oriented giants, including ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP; it also goes against the will of 400 major American cities and 37 states.
Watching from the front row of the gathered crowd with a smile, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt, the strongest anti-Paris voice in the administration, repeatedly applauded and patted the back of Reince Priebus, the White House Chief-of-Staff.
“The bottom line is that the Paris accord is very unfair to the United States. It is transferring coal jobs to foreign countries,” Trump added, reading from a script.
The President also claimed, without citing his source, that “even if the Paris agreement was implemented in full, it is estimated that it would implement two-tenths of a degree of temperature reduction by 2100.”
“This agreement is less about the climate and more countries gaining a financial advantage to the United States.”
His most breathtaking statement came just a few minutes into his speech. Shaking his head, he claimed that the rest of the world went wild when the Paris agreement was signed “because it placed America at a serious economic disadvantage,” a rather extraordinary claim by any measure.
Trump also claimed that the Green Energy fund – one designed to help developing nations make the transition to clean energy grids – was a fraudulent fund and one that America will no longer pay into.
The process of retraction is not immediate. Formal notice of withdrawal cannot be filed until November 2019, after which it will take a year longer before the US is officially removed from the Agreement – so it’s not clear at this point if all the legal strings will be untied in time for the next presidential election in 2020.
Either way, unless something major changes at the top tier of US politics, it’s almost certain that the Paris agreement will lose the participation of the world’s second-most prolific GHG emitter.
In the meantime, it’s likely that the US will continue to inform the UN how its GHG emissions are trending, as it is legally mandated to do so. It will not, however, directly attempt to cut its carbon footprint, nor will it keep up the donations to the UN designed to help poorer nations make the transition to a low-carbon energy infrastructure.
There will be no punitive measures or sanctions directed at the US for taking this path, but it’s likely that this will only exacerbate the recent bout of American isolationism that the Trump administration has single-handedly brought about. In particular, the European Union – collectively the third-most prolific GHG emitter – is likely to turn its back on the US even more so than it already has.
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“This is one of the worst decisions that the President has made to date,” Dr Andrew Light, a Distinguished Senior Fellow in the Global Climate Program at the World Resources Institute (WRI), told IFLScience.
“He’s doing nothing more than alienating himself from the rest of the world, undermining US security, and undermining American competitiveness abroad. America will become an international pariah.”
The immediate impact, apart from global shock, won’t be environmental. If anything, it will be a boost to climate change deniers.
By withdrawing from Paris, it sends a clear signal out to the world that it’s fine to ignore more than 97 percent of the world’s scientists – and when the most powerful nation on Earth rejects the basic premise of scientific consensus, then you’d better believe that this will encourage the American people to do so too. This is the most severe symptom yet of the anti-intellectual pandemic that's spreading across the country.
Symbolically, this is a blow to international cooperation on a subject very few people, and very few governments, disagree with. In terms of the damage it will do to the world, however, this is where we can be less certain.
We’ve already outlined the consequences for the US pulling out of the Paris agreement. From increasingly powerful natural disasters to economic crashes, there’s a distinct possibility that America will be a hugely damaged nation by the turn of the next century.
As we also pointed out, however, there is hope. The rest of the world is moving on with their GHG cuts, and sizable US states are continuing to invest in clean energy. The federal government may not be participating in the agreement, but almost the entire world is, and at least a third of the US is too in some way.
Consequently, although it’ll be harder for the ambitious targets of the Paris agreement to be met, it’s still possible that they will be. Additionally, if Trump is thrown out of office in 2020, there’s a chance that his successor may choose to stop the withdrawal process or rejoin the accord.
Unfortunately, this colossal disappointment now means that we’re still facing the prospect of a weakened Paris agreement. The world will now look to the EU and China to lead the pack when it comes to saving the planet from a nightmarish, climate change-ravaged future.
“The rest of the world will look at America in bafflement, but they will move forward,” Light added. “I think that the Paris agreement will be fine – the most damage will actually be done to the United States. That is the very clear truth about this decision.”
This is nothing less than a titanic triumph of ego over reason. It’s an act of considerable self-harm, and one that will be seen as a key moment in history: the point where the US, the global leader, became a shameful shadow of its former self.
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/breaking-trump-announces-americas-withdrawal-from-the-paris-climate-agreement/page-2/ -
Everyone should be allowed to have their own opinions, no one should be allowed to have their own facts.
The science community doesnt agree on ? , and to have 97% agree that climate change is undeniable says all that we have to know.
This ? is ? offensive. -
Such a ?
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and SUPERPREDATORS, right?
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He's really trying hard to be the bad guy in the next call of duty
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Captain Planet we need you!
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For the none of this affects black people crowd:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-hits-poor-hardest/
and
"Africa has been dealing with the impacts of climate change since the 1970s. The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) described the African continent as the one that will be most affected."
cacs gonna bleed this planet dry and leave us to clean it up like WALL-E while they move on to the next one like them Independence Day aliens smh -
R.I.P America.
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Before the end of the year we're gonna be what Iraq in the 90's was to the u.s.
White ppl are gonna turn on each other then turn on the rest of the country.
Mfs think isis is bad but nothing worst than a white American terrorist. They are demons waiting to unleash true hell on earth. -
Rozetta5tone wrote: »Before the end of the year we're gonna be what Iraq in the 90's was to the u.s.
White ppl are gonna turn on each other then turn on the rest of the country.
Mfs think isis is bad but nothing worst than a white American terrorist. They are demons waiting to unleash true hell on earth.
And they high on ? and Heroin ...... -
"Any contract can be recontracted" - Stunna
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KingFreeman wrote: »"Any contract can be recontracted" - Stunna
We need Trumps face shopped on this gif -
Don't Care -
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Even if you believes global warming is a hoax. How can you not want to breath cleaner air?
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Wow. Word? So we just straight up deleting comments on the IC now?
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OnnaThursday wrote: »He's really trying hard to be the bad guy in the next call of duty
I was thinking more a Captain Planet Villian -
Even though America has pulled out of the deal, a lot of states like California are still moving forward as if we are a part of the deal.
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He'll be gone in 1257 days
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A few facts:
-China and India produces 75% of the worlds pollution yet they don't have to do anything for the next 13 years. In fact China has came out and said they're going to double their amount of coal plants.
-By funneling 3 trillion dollars of US taxpayers money into poorer nations to invest in green energy this is expected to reduce temperatures by 2/10's of 1 degree by 2100. 2/10's of 1 degree? That ain't ? .
-The polar icecaps have actually growing for the past 4 years.
-If you study data you'll see that temperatures have been rising and falling for over 650,000 years. In fact we're about due for another ice age. -
High Revolutionary wrote: »A few facts:
-China and India produces 75% of the worlds pollution yet they don't have to do anything for the next 13 years. In fact China has came out and said they're going to double their amount of coal plants.
-By funneling 3 trillion dollars of US taxpayers money into poorer nations to invest in green energy this is expected to reduce temperatures by 2/10's of 1 degree by 2100. 2/10's of 1 degree? That ain't ? .
-The polar icecaps have actually growing for the past 4 years.
-If you study data you'll see that temperatures have been rising and falling for over 650,000 years. In fact we're about due for another ice age.
you are aware its still bad for your health
https://youtu.be/OzfJYPYqMq0
