The Paris Agreement - Just the Facts Ma'am

The Paris Agreement – Just the Facts, Ma’am
The View from the Middle

If you haven’t read the Paris Agreement, I recommend you do so. It’s only 25 pages long and the experience will allow you to cut through the hysterical rhetoric you’ve been hearing from the media and help you understand the upside and downside of our participation in it. There are very smart people on both sides of this issue so don’t let either side demonize you for your choice.

If you agree with Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement, “the left” will call you stupid, uncaring and greedy. They will probably accuse you of misogyny, homophobia, Islamaphobia, xenophobia and bigotry too, but I fail to see the connection. If you wanted to continue to participate in this agreement, “the right” (while less vocal) may accuse you of ignorance and blind loyalty. The truth is, as usual, somewhere in the middle. There are good reasons for withdrawal from or to support the agreement and Trump was going to get skewered no matter which way he went. If he decided to continue to support the Paris Accord, the media would have painted it as a broken campaign promise, but now he is just stupid, etc.

Make up your own mind, but let’s all deal with the facts, not apocalyptic projections. I’ve heard that the Marshall Islands will be underwater by 2070. Put that on your calendars for those of you who will still be alive by then. Of course the polar ice caps were supposed to be gone 10 years ago, but they stubbornly hang on, and millions of children are going to die of asthma attacks. Not that I am unsympathetic to asthma (my wife is a sufferer) but that is a claim that is easy to make but impossible to prove. Here is a fact – The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (some pretty smart folks) have projected that if all the provisions of the Paris Agreement are met, it will only result in a lowering of global temperatures by .2 degrees Celsius by 2100. That’s two tenths of one degree by 2100, and there are many assumptions built into that projection.

Let’s just deal with the facts. First fact – the Paris Agreement is non-binding. That means that all 175 countries can submit any grandiose plan they like, and if they don’t deliver on those plans there are NO consequences. In a group that includes Iran, Cuba and North Korea, I don’t have confidence in compliance. The United States, by contrast, does actually try to live up to it’s commitments, so let’s look at what exactly President Obama committed us to (remember, this was an executive action not passed through Congress. I wonder why?)

The first thing that the President committed us to is a 27% reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a lot, and how exactly are we going to do that? The short answer to that question is that we will have to convert energy we currently generate through fossil fuels to renewables. That sounds easy enough. Unfortunately, wind and solar combined only generate 3% of America’s energy today. Plus, when you take away government subsidies, they are much more expensive. This uncovers two problems. First, it is not practical to transition to renewables that quickly, AND if we tried, energy costs for the average American would “necessarily skyrocket”. Those are President Obama’s own words.

A side effect of this assault on our energy and manufacturing industries is going to be lost jobs. President Trump said that we could lose as many as 2.7 million jobs by 2025. That’s based on a study by insurance and risk management company NERA. I’m not sure if the job losses will be that great, but common sense should tell us that the disruption of our economy, increases in regulations and increased energy costs will kill jobs here.

The second thing Mr. Obama committed us to was money! By my count, the concept of transferring money from “developed” countries (us) to “developing” countries was mentioned 19 times in the Paris Agreement. Hillary Clinton said the US would coordinate a fund of $100 billion a year for this effort. The director of the Green Climate Fund, who would receive and distribute this money, suggested that the need would quickly rise to about $450 billion a year. BTW - I want the job of distributing that money. No threat of corruption there!! I looked at the leadership of that fund and you know what country is not represented? That’s right, The United States!! We’ll be the sugar daddy, of course, but will not be influential in the distribution of that sugar.

Since we are already running deficits here in the US, every penny of these new climate “goodie bags” will have to be borrowed. So, we will be borrowing money from China and giving it to – guess who? – China!! Another side note – of the 175 countries who signed the Paris Agreement, about 140 are considered “developing” countries that will receive funds from the “developed” countries, which I think means us. No wonder they received support from so many nations. BTW – Russia, India and China are all considered “developing” countries, thus eligible to receive these green funds.

I support Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. I’m not saying we should trash the environment. We should continue to research global warming to insure we understand the real causes and find solutions. I’m a big believer in solar power. Some day we will figure out how to harness it effectively and efficiently, but that day is not today. We don’t need the Paris Agreement to do that and we certainly don’t need to borrow any more money in the name of the American people. The other 174 countries can go ahead with their plans and America will do just fine, thank you. Or, they could come back and put together an agreement that will be better for the American people and pass it through Congress.