Paris Climate Agreement

Concerning the Paris climate agreement, the relevant question is, not who still supports it and will actually meet their greenhouse gas reduction commitments, rather it is what country will be next out the door.

Any way you cut it, other countries are hypocrites when it comes to criticizing President Donald Trump for pulling out of the Paris agreement, and calling America a carbon dioxide villain.

Barely two years into the Paris climate agreement and it is falling apart as countries jockey for a position of competitive economic advantage, and claimed moral superiority. 

With hundreds of coal fired power plants under construction or in the planning stage, whatever coal’s ultimate fate in the United States it seems the developing world is on pace to make it the King of electricity once again in the near future. Simultaneously, the European countries complaining the loudest about President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement are importing more U.S. coal. The King is dead, long live the King!

Earlier we looked at how the lefty New York Times, a green press role model, misdescribed what the Bonn climate summit was going to be about.

Obama is gone. The “green queen” Angela Merkel is struggling over coal. Britain is brexiting the green EU. Japan is silent, while China and India burn coal like crazy. Russia never did care. And so it goes.

States that claim they’re committed to Paris do nothing for the climate and ill serve their citizens.

Stories this week shed light on the often hidden high costs of both private sector (sort of private sector at least) and public sector efforts to promote renewable energy to fight climate change. Research shows climate commitments impose high energy costs on ratepayers and make the business climate less competitive — both trends that will only get worse if states pursue Paris. 

By withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement, President Donald Trump may have avoided myriad legal efforts to force the administration to restrict fossil fuel development and use in the United States.

Despite the invective hurled at President Trump, the Paris Accord would have done very little to prevent catastrophic global warming. 

A consortium of medical societies is echoing former President Obama’s dire warning that climate change is the biggest threat facing the world and public health.

Pittsburgh’s Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto recently claimed that despite Trump leaving Paris, the city is still committed to renewable energy.

The result of President Trump’s actions is to lead our country to great economic wealth instead of economic stagnation.