> It is truly tragic that the U.S. has abandoned its leadership and moral authority on one of the critical issues of our time.<p>Leadership in fighting climate change? Cmon' every EU-country is better at fighting climate change than the US. Denmark has at least 50% of their energy coming from their huge wind farms. Norway has a huge network of chargers for electrical cars, tax cuts for electrical cars and Sweden is huge in all sorts of environmental savings.<p>In Sweden you can't even order a fucking burger without seeing how much CO2 that produces and ads for vegetarian burgers that are better for the environment.<p>If you really think US is good at all at fighting climate change, you should really come to the EU and watch us recycle. Even during the recent terror attack in Stockholm there were people recycling.<p>Proof:<p><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/radio-content/archive/undertheinfluence/max_menuboard.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.cbc.ca/radio-content/archive/undertheinfluence/ma...</a><p><a href="http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2012/1204/360_intl_healthy_food_0406.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2012/1204/360_intl_healthy...</a><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/sweden/comments/64199h/two_swedes_recycling_under_full_terrorist_threat/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/sweden/comments/64199h/two_swedes_r...</a>
Trump once again shows he's a political savant. This was the obvious move for someone who cares more about power than doing the right thing: he delivered a campaign promise, he appears strong to his supporters, he gives congressional Republicans something they want and at the same time acquires a bargaining chip with Europe and China that he can cash in later. It takes four years to unwind, so there isn't even much damage and he can announce some new deal right before he's up for election. By dragging the decision out for a week he also distracted from any ongoing talk about Russia etc. Kind of a classic agency problem: this is good for him, bad for the rest of the world.
I have not studied this in great detail so take my point as speculation.<p>My memory is that the US withdrew from Kyoto as well. They withdrew but were still one of the few countries that actually reached the goal outlined there.<p>The reason was not political action but rather market adoption.<p>I don't know much beyond that but it is possible that much the same could happen, if coal is continualy replaced with gas or solar. Cars will be replaced with EV soon enough, even outside of any government action or gloabl agreement.<p>Again if have not studied the magnitude of all these changes and compared them to what exactly the parameters of Paris are so I am not arguing that trump did the right thing. In fact, if you expact the outcome anyway signing might be "free".<p>I just think some people mistake the signing of a international agreement with results. Kyoto did show that that was not really always the case. Not signing some agreement will not automatically mean we are heading for Mad Max.<p>The actual outcome and compliance will be mostly detrmained by internal politics of each country.
Climate change and immigration are the two topics that Trump can use to his benefit without the fear getting bitten back.<p>Immigrants have no say or voting rights. They can be used as a drum to do the pow wow ing. Earth wont talk back. Two perfect candidates.
{{{Indeed, while investors decried the decision, they admitted that their companies were already prepared for it.<p>“Most of the folks working around energy and climate no longer seem to require policy support,” said Shaun Abrahamson, a managing partner at Urban Us.}}}<p>Now I'm confused.. this contradicts the central thrust of the arricle
Even if it was a good deal, which it doesn't seem to be, it was essentially a handshake Obama made with other countries. Send it through Congress.