Yesterday, Donald Trump announced that the US would be pulling out the Paris Climate Accord, and agreement signed by all but two countries, Nicaragua and Syria. The decision was widely expected. It was also predictable. First, it fulfilled a commitment he had made to his base at a time when he is widely unpopular elsewhere. Second, at least in the short term, the damage is more symbolic than substantive. The federal regulations introduced to meet the Accord's goals had already been dismantled months ago. Renewable energy has gotten cheap enough that coal is never coming back as a source of power generation. Auto makers may well to follow California's stricter emission standards and push ahead with electric vehicle development given the size of the California and world markets. Clean energy jobs will continue to grow as the sector gains traction, both internationally, helped by regulation, and domestically, where market forces are driving adoption. While the decision only further isolates America from the rest of the world, withdrawing, per-se, may have little direct impact on US carbon emissions.
It is also worth noting that nowhere in his speech did Trump repeat his misbegotten claim that man-made climate change is a hoax. That suggests either that he has changed his mind or that he is paying attention to his ex-military advisors, McMaster and Mattis. The US military has been concerned about climate change for over a decade and has been planning accordingly, for example investigating the use of biofuel for its aircraft. And in saying that he'd be open to renegotiating the terms of US participation in the accord, he seems to be implicitly acknowledging that it is a threat to US interests, and that action might be taken to mitigate it.
Trump appears to be very carefully navigating a course between the clamouring his of electorate and the more widely held consensus.
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