The Paris Climate Agreement

Scientific studies have proven that the earth’s climate is increasing and claim that humans are the blame as their activities such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels affect the earth. Nearly two weeks ago, the United States had one of its most important days of the year: Election day. The vote came down to Former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and now, President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump. Before Trump won the election, one of the most controversial issues he and Clinton argued upon was on climate change. Rebecca Harrington of Business Insider writes that Clinton said, “Some country is going to be the clean- energy superpower of the 21st century. Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it's real.” Harrington then adds that Trump responded by saying, “I did not. I did not. I do not say that.” The article continues and explains that Trump “does not accept the overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is real.” Hillary on the contrary, according to writers Steven Mufson and Brady Dennis, “had been adamant that she would follow through on the promises Obama made under the Paris climate accord, and vowed to defend and implement the Clean Power Plan and reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by nearly a third by 2025, relative to 2005 levels.” This issue is very relevant in today’s

If President Trump follows through his “America Free Energy Plan” promise it will undo a majority of President Obama’s actions to reduce the United States greenhouse gas emissions. Thus having a negative influence on the climate. Another problem that can occur is

Pruitt to dismantle the rules” (Friedman 2). Friedman also states “Mr. Trump appeared to claim he has already done so, telling a crowd in Alabama: “Did you see what I did to that? Boom, gone” (2). There is no explanation of where any of these quotes were taken from or from what event they were stated at. Although there is obviously a very left bias, the ethos presented in it is appropriate. The author of the article, Lisa Friedman, is a reporter who focuses on climate and environmental policy. She has covered eight international climate talks. This information is critical when establishing Friedman’s ethos as it depicts her vast knowledge on the topic and how she is fit to discuss the matter through her experience.

It is significant to recognize that as a non-binding agreement, if the reductions were not met, no penalty would be issued and no money paid forth. This is unlike the Kyoto’s binding agreement that was estimated to cost $14 billion in penalties for not achieving its goals, where if Canada had decided to continue to attempt its original goals, the costs were said to be twenty times lower (Canada and the Kyoto Protocol

There are 7.3 billion people on Earth (United States Census Bureau, 2016). More specifically, there are 7.3 billion people who depend on Earth for food, water, and shelter. If there is one thing that every living organism has in common, it’s our dependence on the planet to survive. Unfortunately, since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been systematically degrading the Earth and its resources. President Obama’s final State of the Union address was structured around four main points, one of which was centered around innovation (2016). His points focused on the impending reality of climate change and America’s potential to lead the world down a path of sustainability and green innovation. His hour long speech devoted a mere five minutes to climate issues, further suggesting that climate change remains a less pressing issue than the economy, for example, and I felt that he oversimplified an incredibly complex issue. President Obama’s economic appeals paint a hopeful picture without acknowledging the potential pitfalls associated with climate capitalism. However, President Obama’s strong stance claiming that climate change is in fact happening is an incredibly positive step in the fight against climate change.

On December 15, 2011, the Government of Canada authoritatively told the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that Canada would practice its legitimate right to formally pull back from the Kyoto Protocol. The Environment Minister, Peter Kent, was the one who announced this. The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement connected to the UNFCCC that sets internationally binding greenhouse gas reduction targets for each country that is in the agreement. There are a lot of benefits as to why Canada should stay in the agreement, but at the same time there are a few complications and setbacks that we will have to face as well. Canada will reduce the amount of greenhouse gases, save money and create jobs, and reduce drastic

Last month, the United States of America and fellow global powerhouse China reached a deal to incorporate more non-fossil fuel energy into their total energy consumption. Through this deal, greenhouse gas production will be cut by up to 26 percent in America, lowering our levels to somewhere around 28 percent of the levels experienced in 2005 (Samuelson). This plan has been hailed as a great first step, and it is likely that smaller countries will make similar emissions cuts. That being said, China and America currently combine for 42 percent of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide according to the International Energy Agency. The world still heavily relies on fossil fuels for about 80 percent of its energy. In order to solve this problem of moving to renewable resources without causing a global economic collapse, countries need to be prepared to make budget cuts in other areas. Weak agreements have been enacted with dates a few years down the road to change this degenerative process. However, with loose restrictions on the way each country will achieve this goal, the discussions feels, according to Climate Research Program Leader Myles R. Allen, like a lost cause. It simply is not enough. The United States of America should be taking stronger initiatives and setting the standards for the transition towards a greener tomorrow. These initiatives would benefit both the Earth and its inhabitants. To do this, the government should take this more active role, through

The Trump Presidency has lead to major changes in foreign policy, but none sparked as much shock and outcry as the removal of the United States from the Paris Climate Accord. Perhaps the underlying problem is that the accord, which trump described as “draconian”, was seen as a step in the right direction for so many others. At its core, the accord put restrictions on companies all over the world to help decrease the effect of global warming and climate change. More than anything else, it was a symbol of our country's commitment towards protecting the environment, along with it the lifestyle of generations to come. This change in policy shifts America away from international environmental cooperation, and signals Trump’s alignment with American freedom above all else.

Recently, the United States experienced one of the most controversial elections in the nations’ history. The election in question was Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton, two extremely different candidates who opposed each other on almost every important issue. One of the issues that they greatly opposed each other on, but has received very little press, was their view on climate change. Hillary Clinton was a strong believer in climate change and wanted to help aid in the transition from coal to renewable forms of fuel. On the contrary, Donald Trump’s view on climate change could not be more opposite; Donald Trump proclaimed in a tweet “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” (realDonaldTrump). Trump has also hinted at completely withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is an agreement made by many of the world’s most powerful nations to reduce carbon emissions. Many

Hi Brittany, I agree that the United States should not have pulled out of the agreement; however unfortunately the Paris agreement is not legally binding so any changes it brings about happen only because the countries involved decide to make those changes themselves. I'm not saying the agreement is useless, far from it, but we must acknowledge that it has only as much impact as we allow it to have, and unfortunately our president has decided it doesn't have any. Hope is not lost however as many companies, states, and cities have agreed to honor the agreement

In accord with 97 percent of scientists, I agree that climate change is real and a major threat to humanity. In fact, I feel that it is one of our largest national security threats. The funny thing is, the global community agrees with democrats on this. In 2015, world leaders came together to sign the paris agreement, in which major countries around the world “pledged to do all they could to hold the rise of the planet’s temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius (Lee).” However, President Trump appears to be renegading on this promise, giving up Obama’s clean energy initiatives in favor of more coal. He has additionally cut the EPA and put a climate change skeptic at it’s highest position. He has even called climate change a “hoax perpetrated by the Chineese.” All of this is nearly comical, but also has grave dangers with it. I believe that if we do not curb climate change, we will be seeing serious negative effects, as habitats are destroyed, weather becomes more extreme, and the ice caps begin to melt (Lee). To me, this is terrifying, and why it is one of my most important reasons for taking the democratic stance. I believe that we should invest in clean energy, with the help of government subsidies, so that we can develop solar, nuclear, and wind energy to the point where we can eventually begin to cut out fossil fuels. Companies should also only receive a very limited number of tradeable carbon

To explain, Trump mentions in his speech that other countries such as China and India are allowed to open a substantial number of coal mines in the coming years under the Paris Accord, while the United States was informed they are not to open anymore concerning the amount of excess pollution they would create. This scenario makes a strong argument to working class America favoring the cutting ties with the PA, if foreign countries are allowed to continue to grow their economies cultivating new jobs, then so too should the United States. Trump makes it apparent that the Paris Accord focuses on more than strictly pollution, because the growth of the working class on foreign turf is hindering the job market in our home country. Trump makes the claim in his speech, “In short, the agreement doesn’t eliminate coal jobs, it just transfers those jobs out of America and the United States, and ships them to foreign countries.” If we, as a country, were to stay in the PA and let our working class jobs be sent overseas, then we have no one to blame but ourselves for the rise in unemployment and decline in economic prosperity.

President Donald Trump is noticed to be appalled from the very inception of assuming the office. His end-to-end detrimental decision left the world in great trouble. Of late President Trump has made a decision with regards to pull out the United States from the Paris climate accord. When the world is undergoing huge threat as regards to intolerable weather, rising sea level, high temperatures, he decided to take out from the Paris agreement.

The second issue behind the withdrawal was the economic implications. During the speech, he said that staying in the Paris Agreement would cost 2.7 million jobs by 2025. However, these numbers do not tell the whole story. The Paris agreement will cost jobs in traditional energy jobs such as coal and fracking but it will also increase jobs in the renewable energy field. The other major countries that are staying in the agreement are focusing on renewable energy while the US’ new president wants to go back to the past. The workers in the coal industry know that it is declining as cleaner forms of energy production are on the rise. President Trump wants a political win by saying he is creating jobs. That might be nice for the short term but could set us back in the long term. It would be comparable to a leader of the past trying to put more money into horseshoeing and carriage making while automobile production started advancing. “Analysis from a group led by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg estimates that by 2030, coastal storms and rising sea levels alone will have cost about $35 billion (Bump, 2017).” So investment in clean energy could hopefully reduce some of that cost by preventing more global warming.

Again, this topic is being fed, and is growing bigger. The issue is becoming vital to not only the United States, but other countries as well. Copenhagen promises to cut US emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020; in which, we will rely heavily on the cap-and-trade bill that is still in the process of being approved by the Senate (Jonsson). This topic is controversial, but universal as well.