As I said, for the rest of the world it’s more “special ed at the bottom of the class” than “special at the top”. People in countries, as well as their leaders, get fed up with one special toddler stomping his feet demanding special treatment. (See Brexit)
Exactly. That’s why it’s so stupid. If Trump had simply cut funding for the measures under Paris that Obama had instititued - as Trump has started to - it would have been difficult to call him out.
Instead, he’s sent a message to a small part of the US population that he “keeps his promises”; while a large number of cities, and so far two states (CA and another one) have pledged to adhere to Paris with their own funds instead of federal ones; the rest of the world has been given evidence that Trump and by extension the US is even less trusthworthy than before; and the potential of building up goodwill in developing countries by funding renewable energy for them has been lost, leaving them open for China instead.
You missed the point I was making. I didn’t say Trump would get a better deal. I said he would get the same deal but claim he got a better one. Which would be in keeping with him being a lying liar who lies.
*To the contrary, the United States and the EU, U.N. leaders, climate activists and commentators all bent over backward to emphasize this unprecedented success in bringing the world together. Rather than face criticism for pledges to do nothing, countries received applause. A refusal to take climate action seriously earned the activists’ seal of approval. Getting the deal, any deal, became the entire point.
This expediency had several disastrous consequences. First, it left the world committed to a global climate accord that did not address climate change. Analysis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology indicated that full compliance with all pledges would reduce temperatures in the year 2100 by only 0.2 degrees Celsius, and even that may have been generous.
Second, it left the United States exposed. When nations reassembled each year to review commitments, what would they find? Those that had submitted the weakest pledges would appear to be on track or even ahead. But President Obama had promised progress from the American people beyond what even his own policies likely would bring about.
We would be the ones making real efforts and incurring real costs, yet we would be the ones chastised for failing to deliver.
This dynamic is already playing out. Pundits are lauding China for achieving peak emissions far sooner than they pledged, without interrogating whether this says more about the country’s progress or its pledge. Meanwhile, EU leaders look down their noses at the United States, even as their emissions rise and U.S. emissions fall.
Why would the United States remain party to such an agreement? We shouldn’t have accepted its terms in the first place, and in an important sense, we didn’t. *