International Computer Magazine
Mr Trump is trying to save money rather than the planet |
US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw his country from the 2015 Paris climate agreement has irked world leaders, businesses and scientists alike. It has also promoted many to anticipate the world’s impending doom with some Twitter users forecasting global disruption and proposing possible solutions and lifestyle changes. The Weather channel’s homepage on 1 June offered a range of “proof” of how the world could “suffer”. A screen grab of the page was widely shared online, with at least 100,000 interactions and was also archived. Meanwhile, one Democrat commentator on twitter predicted plans for a Trump library and museum underwater in New York. According to Trump, “the Paris climate accord…disadvantages the United States….leaving American workers and taxpayers to absorb the costs in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production.” The fact is, the Paris climate accord cannot disadvantage any country. It is a nonbinding agreement. There is no enforcement mechanism in the agreement, and no penalties, for missing declared targets. Each country can pursue its own course of action on reducing emissions and tailor its own climate change strategy. However, an ever bigger and more debilitating lie is one that the Republican Party has been peddling for years and Trump articulated at the White House: that pursuing a green future will cost American jobs and hamstring the US economy. Among the biggest opponents of the |
Paris deal are coal companies, which is hardly surprising, since coal burning is one of the worst contributors to climate change. Yet the US coal industry represents just over 50,000 American jobs – a 100,000 decline from 30 years ago. Pulling out of Paris will not save one coal mining job or revive an industry that even its biggest boosters concede is not coming back. In contrast, there are more than 260,000 jobs in the US solar industry and more than 100,000 in wind. In all, more than 800,000 Americans have jobs in the renewable energy industry. If there’s any silver lining to be found in Trump’s terrible decision, it’s that other countries actually recognize the dangers of global warming and the economic benefits of trying to combat it. The fight will continue without America. The deal actually unites all the world’s nations in a single agreement on tackling climate change for the first time in history. Coming to a consensus among nearly 200 countries on the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions is regarded by many observers as an achievement in itself and has been hailed as “historic”. President Donald Trump faced a chorus of global disapproval in the wake of his decision to pull the United States out of the Paris agreement on climate change, with allies and rivals uniting to accuse him of failing future generations. Following trump’s announcement, German chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni put out a joint statement in which they pledged |
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