Trump's hot air on the Paris agreement

Trump has finally kept a campaign promise -- and, in doing so, brought near-universal opprobrium upon himself and potentially inflicted some real damage on the world. We'll probably never know whether Trump personally "believes in" anthropogenic global warming (if that's even a meaningful question in the case of a man with such disjointed mental processes), but that doesn't matter.  The important thing about what leaders and governments do is the practical effect, not the motivation.

First, the opprobrium.  Trump's decision has been met with near-universal condemnation from business leaders, state and local governments, foreign governments, and even The Weather Channel.  The harm to our relations with other countries will be far-reaching.  Trump is isolating the US on this issue (found via Progressive Eruptions, which has more commentary).  On one of the major issues of the day, he's abandoned the US leadership role.  And this decision is unlikely to be reversed even if he's impeached, since Pence is just as clueless on climate change as his boss is.

Next, the prospective damage.  Here's a discussion of the likely consequences if the US fails to curb greenhouse-gas emissions (written before Trump's announcement), and they're dire indeed.  However, the world may escape the worst of those consequences after all.  Much of the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy is market-driven, and Trump can do little about that.  Already three US states containing 66 million people (more than a fifth of our total population) have formed a "climate alliance" to uphold the Paris agreement, and other states will doubtless join.  Several US cities, including "red" ones like Atlanta and Salt Lake City, and even private companies have similarly committed themselves (found via Tell Me a Story, which has more).  Blue states and major cities account for most of the country's economic output.  If they stick to the agreement, US greenhouse-gas emissions will still decline, perhaps by almost as much as they would have without Trump's action -- and that's what counts.

I concluded some time ago that the main effect of Trump in the Presidency would be to weaken the US position as the world's leading country, and this decision is certainly an example.  But here he's even weakened his own government's role within the US -- as states and cities, like foreign countries, start to work around him in order to get the necessary job done.

[Image at top:  Paris city hall illuminated in green to protest Trump's withdrawal from the agreement]