by Ben Shapiro, 6/2/17, The
Shapiro Report
On Thursday, President
Trump made the first major move of his administration since the appointment of
Judge Gorsuch to the Supreme Court: he withdrew from the Paris Accord, a non-treaty
entered into by President Obama that committed the United States to serious
economic deprivation in order to accomplish nearly nothing in terms of climate
change. It’s true that Trump laid all that out in a well-written, fact-laden
speech. The Left predictably went nuts — they’ve been lighting up buildings
green (wasting energy) and quitting his economic council (who cares) and
tweeting incessantly about the end of the world all day.
But Trump is right. Here
are five reasons why.
1. The Accord Was A
Treaty, And President Obama Refused To Treat It Like One. President Obama
joined the Paris Accord shortly before leaving office, but never sent the
agreement to the Senate for ratification. There was good reason for that: it
wouldn’t have been ratified. Instead, Obama simply assumed that America would
now be bound by requirements to tamp down carbon emissions in serious ways. In
his statement ripping Trump for pulling out of the agreement, for example,
Obama stated, “the world came together in Paris around the first-ever global
agreement to set the world on a low-carbon course and protect the world we
leave to our children.” But none of that was true. Which meant that the accord
was essentially symbolic, but would create a bevy of headlines about America
abandoning global leadership every time we didn’t meet an arbitrary line not
approved by the American people.
2. There Were Legal
Implementation Problems With The Paris Accord. Donald McGahn, the White House
counsel, spelled out that courts could theoretically use the Paris Accord to
strike down Trump’s attempted rollback of carbon emissions regulations from the
Environmental Protection Agency. The Left claimed that this was empty talk — no
enabling legislation regarding the Paris Accord had been signed, so it was
symbolic. But these are the same people who now say the world will burn up
because we’ve pulled out of the accord, and the same people who think the
courts should ignore law in order to strike down executive orders they don’t
like.
3. It Would Have Had No
Impact. Obama himself says, “The private sector already chose a low-carbon
future.” So if that was true, what’s the need for governmental cram-downs,
exactly? Beyond that, Trump is correct that MIT has estimated that even if the
Paris Accord were implemented with current commitments by the various
countries, the global climate would be lowered by a grand total of 0.2 degrees
Celsius by the year 2100. Meanwhile, we’d put crippling regulations on our
economy. MIT and the Left insist that other steps would follow the Paris Accord
— but there’s no evidence of that.
4. It Let Other
Countries Free-Ride. Obama said in his petulant statement, “It was bold
American ambition that encouraged dozens of other nations to set their sights
higher as well.” This is absolute nonsense. One of the reasons to be skeptical
of the Paris Accord is that it asked nations for non-binding commitments on
climate change. Non-binding. As Oren Cass pointed out at Commentary:
China committed to begin
reducing emissions by 2030, roughly when its economic development would have
caused this to happen regardless. India made no emissions commitment, pledging
only to make progress on efficiency—at half the rate it had progressed in
recent years. Pakistan outdid the rest, submitting a single page that offered
to “reduce its emissions after reaching peak levels to the extent possible.”
This is a definition of the word “peak,” not a commitment. ... An April report
by Transport Environment found only three European countries pursuing policies
in line with their Paris commitments and one of those, Germany, has now seen
two straight years of emissions increases. The Philippines has outright
renounced its commitment. A study published by the American Geophysical Union
warns that India’s planned coal-plant construction is incompatible with its own
targets. All this behavior is socially acceptable amongst the climate crowd.
Only Trump’s presumption that the agreement means something, and that countries
should be forthright about their commitments, is beyond the pale.
5. It Put America Last.
Obama and the Left have claimed for years that “green jobs” will be produced by
government. There is no evidence of that happening. It’s a chimera. Van Jones,
Obama’s “green jobs czar,” couldn’t point to any job creation for which he was
responsible. We do know that additional regulations would cripple key
industries in the United States without making up for them with these magical
new “investments.” The private sector, as Obama recognizes, is already moving toward
more efficient energy solutions. But this agreement wasn’t about forwarding
that. It was about creating public pressure for the US government to intervene
in its own economy, without requiring anything of those with whom we compete.
Good for Trump. The
Paris Accord was a meaningless sham, designed mainly to shame the United States
into harming its own economy for the vicarious pleasure of others.
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