On 1 June 2017 Donald Trump announced that the US has left the Paris Agreement. Yesterday, I wrote that there were two ways of leaving: leaving the Paris Agreement (which would take four years); or leaving the UNFCCC (which would take one year). Trump isn’t taking either of these options. Instead, Trump is taking what Richard Black on the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit website calls the “truly nuclear option”.
Black suggested five ways that Trump could leave the Paris Agreement:
- Exit the Paris Agreement by the formal route, which would take four years
- Exit the underlying UN climate convention, which would take one year
- Use the approach modelled by South Park’s Eric Cartman, namely – ‘screw you guys, I’m going home’ – ie, a unilateral pullout with no regard to procedure
- Demand renegotiation of the Paris Agreement
- Argue that the Agreement needs to be ratified by the Senate, and send it there.
In his statement, Trump said that,
As of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord.
In addition, the US will immediately stop any action towards meeting its Nationally Determined Contribution, and cut all funding to the Green Climate Fund.
This is Black’s option three. The US, at least according to what Trump said yesterday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden, plans to leave the Paris Agreement unilaterally, with no regard whatsoever for procedure. For good measure, Trump throws in bits of option four and five.
In his statement, Trump refers to the Paris Agreement as the Paris Accord (apart from a couple of slips). Presumably this is to try to convince us that the Paris Agreement is an international treaty that requires ratification by the US Senate.
Trump’s statement is available on the White House YouTube account:
Here’s a rushed transcript of Trump’s statement about the Paris Agreement. Feel free to leave links to analyses of what this might mean, and/or your own take on all this, in the comments below.
Before we discuss the Paris Accord I’d like to begin with an update on our tremendous, absolutely tremendous economic progress since election day, on November 8th, the economy is starting to come back, and very, very rapidly. We’ve added US$3.3 trillion in stock market value to our economy and more than a million private sector jobs.
I’ve just returned from a trip overseas, where we concluded nearly US$350 billion of military and economic development for the United States, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. It was a very, very successful trip, believe me. Thank you. Thank you.
In my meetings at the G7 we have taken historic steps to demand fair and reciprocal trade that gives Americans a level playing field against other nations. We’re also working very hard for peace in the Middle East and perhaps even peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Our attacks on terrorism are greatly stepped up. And you see that. You see it all over. From the previous administration, including getting many other countries to make major contributions to the fight against terror. Big, big contributions are being made by countries that weren’t doing so much in the form of contribution.
One by one we are keeping the promises I made to American people during my campaign for president. Whether it’s cutting job killing regulations, appointing and confirming a tremendous Supreme Court Justice, putting in place tough new ethics rules, achieving a record reduction in illegal immigration on our southern border, or bringing jobs, plants, and factories back into the United States at numbers which no one until this point thought even possible. And believe me, we’ve just begun. The fruits of our labour will be seen even more so.
On these issues and so many more we’re following through on our commitments, and I don’t want anything to get in our way. I am fighting every day for the great people of this country. Therefore, in order to fulfil my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.
Thank you. Thank you.
But begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris Accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers. So we’re getting out. But we will start to negotiate and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can that’s great. And if we can’t that’s fine.
As president I can put no other consideration before the well-being of American citizens. The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries leaving American workers, who I love, and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production.
Thus as of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. This includes ending the implementation of the Nationally Determined Contribution and, very importantly, the Green Climate Fund, which is costing the United States a vast fortune.
Compliance with the terms of the Paris Accord and the onerous energy restrictions it has placed on the United States, could cost America as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025, according to the National Economic Research Associates. This includes 440,000 fewer manufacturing jobs. Not what we need. Believe me, this is not what we need.
Including automobile jobs. And the further decimation of vital American industries on which countless communities rely. They rely for so much. And we would be giving them so little.
According to the same study, by 2040, compliance with the commitments put into place by the previous administration, would cut production for the following sectors: paper, down 12%; cement, down 23%; iron and steel, down 38%; coal, and I happen to love the coal miners, down 86%; natural gas, down 31%.
The cost to the economy at this time would be close to US$3 trillion in lost GDP, and six-and-a-half million industrial jobs, while households would have several thousand dollars less income and in many cases much worse than that.
Not only does this deal subject our citizens to harsh economic restrictions, it fails to live up to our environmental ideals. As someone who cares deeply about the environment, which I do, I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States. Which is what it does. The world’s leader in environmental protection, while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters.
For example, under the Agreement, China will be able to increase these emissions by a staggering number of years. Thirteen. They can do whatever they want for 13 years. Not us.
India makes its participation contingent on receiving billions and billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid from developed countries.
There are many other examples. But the bottom line is that the Paris Accord is very unfair, at the highest level, to the United States.
Further, while the current Agreement effectively blocks the development of clean coal in America, which is does, and the mines are starting to open up. Having a big opening in two weeks. Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, so many places. A big opening of a brand new mine, it’s unheard of. For many, many years this hasn’t happened. They asked me if I’d go. I’m gonna try.
China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So, we can’t build the plants, but they can. According to this Agreement.
India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020. Think of it. India can double their coal production. We’re supposed to get rid of ours.
Even Europe is allowed to continue construction of coal plants.
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. This agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States.
The rest of the world applauded when we signed the Paris Agreement. They went wild. They were so happy. For the simple reason that it put our country, the United States of America, which we all love, at a very, very big economic disadvantage.
A cynic would say the obvious reason for economic competitors and their wish to see us remain in the agreement is so that we continue to suffer the self-inflicted major economic wound. We would find it very hard to compete with other countries from other parts of the world.
We have among the most abundant energy reserves on the planet. Sufficient to lift millions of America’s poorest workers out of poverty. Yet under this agreement, we are effectively putting these reserves under lock and key, taking away the great wealth of our nation. It’s great wealth. It’s phenomenal wealth. Not so long ago, we had no idea we had such wealth. And leaving millions and millions of families trapped in poverty and joblessness.
The agreement is a massive redistribution of United States wealth to other countries.
At 1% growth renewable sources of energy can meet some of our domestic demand. But at 3 or 4% growth, which I expect, we need all forms of available American energy. Or our country will be at great risk of brownouts and blackouts. Our businesses will come to a halt in many cases. And the American family will suffer the consequences in the form of lost jobs and a very diminished quality of life.
Even if the Paris Agreement were implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it would only produce a two-tenths of one degree, think of that, this much, Celsius reduction in global temperature, by the year 2100. Tiny, tiny amount.
In fact, 14 days of carbon emissions from China alone would wipe out the gains from America, and this is incredible statistic, would totally wipe out the gains from America’s expected reductions in the year 2030. After we have had to spend billions and billions of dollars, lost jobs, closed factories, and suffered much higher energy costs for our businesses and for our homes.
As the Wall Street Journal wrote this morning, “The reality is that withdrawing is in America’s economic interest, and won’t matter much to the climate.”
The United States under the Trump administration will continue to be the cleanest and most environmentally-friendly country on Earth. We’ll be the cleanest. We’ll have the cleanest air, the cleanest water, we will be environmentally friendly, but we’re not gonna put our businesses out of work. We’re not gonna lose our jobs. We’re gonna grow. We’re gonna grow rapidly.
And I think you just read, it just came out minutes ago, the small business report, small businesses as of just now are booming. Hiring people. One of the best reports I’ve seen in many years.
I’m willing to immediately work Democratic leaders to either negotiate our way back into Paris under the terms that are fair to the United States and its workers, or to negotiate a new deal that protects our country and its taxpayers.
So if the obstructionists want to get together with me, let’s make them non-obstructionists. We will all sit down and get back into the deal and make it good and we won’t be closing up our factories, and we won’t be losing our jobs, and we’ll sit down with the Democrats and all of the people that represent either the Paris Accord or something that we can do that’s much better than the Paris Accord, and I think the people will be thrilled, and I think then the people of the world will be thrilled.
But until we do that, we’re out of the Agreement. I will work to ensure that America remains the world’s leader on environmental issues. But under a framework that is fair and where the burdens and responsibilities are equally shared among the many nations all around the world.
No responsible leader can put the workers and the people of their country at this debilitating and tremendous disadvantage.
The fact that the Paris deal hamstrings the United States, while empowering some of the world’s top polluting countries, should dispel any doubt as to the real reason why foreign lobbyists wish to keep our magnificent country tied up and bound down by this agreement. It’s to give their country an economic edge over the United States. That’s not gonna happen while I’m president. I’m sorry.
My job as president is to do everything within my power to give America a level playing field. And to create the economic regulatory and tax structures that make America the most prosperous and productive country on Earth, and with the highest standard of living and the highest standard of environmental protection.
Our tax bill is moving along in congress, and I believe it’s doing very well. I think a lot of people will be very pleasantly surprised. The Republicans are working very, very hard. We’d love to have support from the Democrats, but we may have to go it alone. But it’s going very well.
The Paris agreement handicaps the United States’ economy in order to win praise from the very foreign capitals and global activists that have long sought to gain wealth at our country’s expense. They don’t put America first. I do. And I always will.
The same nations asking us to stay in the Agreement are the countries that have collectively cost America trillions of dollars through tough trade practices, and in many cases lax contributions to our critical military alliance. You see what’s happening. It’s pretty obvious to those that want to keep an open mind.
At what point does America get demeaned? At what point do they start laughing at us as a country? We want fair treatment for its citizens and we want fair treatment for our taxpayers. We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore, and they won’t be. They won’t be.
I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.
I promised I would exit, or renegotiate, any deal which fails to serve America’s interests. Many trade deals will soon be under renegotiation. Very rarely do we have a deal that works for this country. But they’ll soon be under renegotiation.
The process has begun from day one, but now we’re down to business. Beyond the severe energy restrictions inflicted by the Paris Accord, it includes yet another scheme to redistribute wealth out of the United States through the so-called Green Climate Fund. Nice name. Which calls for developed countries to send US$100 billion to developing countries, all on top of America’s existing and massive foreign aid payments.
We’re going it be paying billions and billions and billions of dollars and we’re already way ahead of anybody else, many of the other countries haven’t spent anything. And many of them will never pay one dime.
The Green Fund would likely obligate the United States to commit potentially tens of billions of dollars of which the United States has already handed over US$1 billion. Nobody else is even close. Most of them haven’t even paid anything.
Including funds raided out of America’s budget for the war against terrorism. That’s where they came. Believe me, they didn’t come from me. They came just before I came into office. Not good. And not good the way they took the money.
In 2015, the United Nations’ departing top climate officials reportedly described the US$100 billion per year as peanuts, and stated that the US$100 billion is the tail that wags the dog.
In 2015, the Green Climate Fund’s Executive Director reportedly stated that estimated funding needed would increase to US$450 billion per year after 2020, and nobody even knows where the money’s going to. Nobody’s been able to say, where is it going to?
Of course, the world’s top polluters have no affirmative obligations under the Green Fund. Which we terminate.
America is US$20 trillion in debt. Cash-strapped cities cannot hire enough police officers. Or fix vital infrastructure. Millions of our citizens are out of work, and yet under the Paris Accord, billions of dollars, that ought to be invested right here in America, will be sent to the very countries that have taken our factories and our jobs away from us. So think of that.
There are serious legal and constitutional issues as well. Foreign leaders in Europe, Asia, and across the world, should not have more to say with respect to the US Economy than our own citizens and their elected representatives.
Thus, our withdrawal from the agreement represents a reassertion of America’s sovereignty.
Our constitution is unique among all nations of the world. And it is my highest obligation and greatest honour to protect it. And I will.
Staying in the agreement could also pose serious obstacles for the United States as we begin the process of unlocking the restrictions on America’s abundant energy reserves. Which we have started. Very strongly.
It would once have been unthinkable that an international agreement could prevent the United States from conducting its own domestic economic affairs. But this is the new reality we face if we do not leave the Agreement, or if we do not negotiate a far better deal.
The risks grow as historically these agreements only tend to become more and more ambitious over time. In other words, the Paris framework is just a starting point. As bad as it is. Not an end point. And exiting the Agreement protects the United States from future intrusions on the United States’ sovereignty. And massive future legal liability. Believe me, we have massive legal liability if we stay in.
As president, I have one obligation, and that obligation is to the American people.
The Paris Accord would undermine our economy, hamstring our workers, weaken our sovereignty, impose unacceptable legal risk, and put us at a permanent disadvantage to the other countries of the world. It is time to exit the Paris Accord.
And time to pursue a new deal that protects the environment, our companies, our citizens, and our country. It is time to put Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, along with many, many other locations within our great country, before Paris, France.
It is time to make America great again.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Very important.