Trump’s Paris agreement withdrawal might be the wake-up call we need
Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris agreement on climate change might just be the wake-up call we need to renew the push for real climate action.
Trump is a monster. That much was never in doubt. The man cares nothing for the health of our planet or the future generations who will live on it. A businessman by birth, his sole abiding concern is money. If the world was literally burning before his eyes, he’d be looking to invest in fire.
Withdrawing the US from the Paris agreement is about boosting profits for the wealthy few and pulling the wool over the eyes of those unfortunate people who might take seriously his rhetoric about putting “America first”. The only people Trump is really putting first are the fossil fuel barons and other sections of US capital that stand to benefit from a short term boost in energy supplies.
Trump claims that restrictions on fossil fuel production imposed under the agreement will lead to millions of job losses over the coming decades. This is rubbish.
Already, hundreds of thousands of US residents are employed in the renewable energy industry, and the number is rapidly rising. Trump conveniently ignores the fact that retooling the US energy system for sustainability would give a far bigger boost to employment than the kind of rearguard action he’s taking to promote fossil fuels.
Anger at Trump, however, shouldn’t blind us to the reality that the Paris agreement is far from being the solution that it’s made out to be. The idea that it was ever going to result in the kind of rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions required to avoid runaway warming is a fantasy.
Following Trump’s decision, celebrity environmentalist David Suzuki penned an article in the Guardian titled “Trump has just passed on the best deal the planet has ever seen”. This is delusional. The Paris agreement is a fraud – smoke and mirrors designed to give the impression of taking serious action on climate change without, in reality, achieving anything much at all. Richard Seymour put it well in an article at patreon.com:
“The two degree commitment was a nice idea, a pretty promise, with absolutely nothing to back it up. No one was going to be penalised for missing the target. No one was going to be told what policies to implement. The Paris Accords were loosely drawn up and loosely designed, under US pressure but with multilateral agreement, so that the stated objectives would not have to be met.”
There are a number of clear pointers to this “inconvenient truth”. For a start, the coal-loving Australian government supported the Paris agreement, and promises to continue supporting it despite the US withdrawal. That should be evidence enough.
For the Australian government, signing the agreement was an exercise in green washing. It could claim to be doing something about climate change, while continuing with business as usual – supporting the expansion of the coal industry, including Adani’s proposed new mega-mine in Queensland, and aggressively pushing for an opening of agricultural land for coal seam gas mining.
To the extent that there might be any consequences for this blatant flouting of the “spirit” of the agreement, they can be dealt with later. Conveniently though, by that point climate change will be even more pronounced than it is today, making it easier to argue that we should give up on trying to avoid it and just learn to adapt.
A section of the US establishment opposed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement for similar reasons. This includes secretary of state Rex Tillerson, formerly the CEO of oil giant ExxonMobil, and numerous other business leaders in fossil fuels and related industries.
They view the agreement as a good cover for their continuing ability to pollute with impunity. And by keeping its seat at the table, the US could prevent any possible future attempt to strengthen it. As it is, Trump has ceded any claim to leadership or moral authority on the issue – leaving the door open for global competitors such as China to enhance their reputations in the international arena.
Why would the Australian government, which literally parades about in parliament gleefully holding up lumps of coal, or Tillerson and his like, support an agreement that was actually going to threaten the ongoing profitability of fossil fuels? The answer is clear. The political status quo established by the Paris agreements suits them very nicely indeed. And the US withdrawal threatens to upset the apple cart.
Paris was designed to make us think that everything is okay, that our enlightened leaders have, through their “visionary”, “groundbreaking” agreement, put us on track to a sustainable future.
The danger for the Australian government and Co., as Seymour aptly put it, is that “Trump’s actions might force the issue back on the agenda, and disrupt the sedative effect of the Accord”.
Let’s take this as a wake-up call. As the battle over the Adani coal mine shows, we can’t rely on our leaders to get the job done for us. They’re prepared to let the planet burn in the name of profit. If we want to avoid that fate, we’ll need to fight them all the way.
