Pulled from the Paris Agreement

By: The Dandilyonn Team

This Thursday, President Trump gave a surprise gift to every citizen in our country, by announcing that the United States would be seceding from the Paris Agreement. This accord symbolized the advancement in climate conservation and the union of our entire planet to save our home. You might remember it from one of our previous articles, which had highlighted it as the one of the most prominent examples of progress we were making as a society, and all the benefits it would produce. We had no idea at the time, that this same “progress” we were making would be utterly reversed in a matter of seconds.

While Trump was recommended countless times by most, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and even his own daughter, to stay in the agreement, he persisted in his idea of attaining a “better deal” for the United States. Trump’s reasoning was that if the United States was to stay, it would cause blackouts (he actually said this), decrease jobs, cause economic decline, and cost us billions and billions and billions of dollars. And, he also stated that the Paris Agreement would barely make a difference, which as we all know, is simply not true.

Trump’s claims, when examined, are very offset from reality:

1. Decrease Jobs: Trump based his assertions on a study that is widely condemned for underestimating the growth of alternative energy sources such as solar energy. Solar jobs in fact outnumber coal and the field has grown 17 times faster than our economy.
   
2. Cost Billions: The United States is paying the most for the Paris Agreement at $3 million. But logically speaking, we are also a third of the overall carbon emitted into the air so it is only fair that we pay the most. Additionally, per capita, the United States is paying a much smaller amount at $9.30 compared to places like Luxembourg's $93.60 per capita.
   
3. Blackouts: While Trump didn’t elaborate on this claim much, he declared that the United States would be at risk of “blackouts and brownouts”, probably meaning that this would happen if we didn’t use all the energy resources we could get. This isn’t true of course; blackouts are caused by a multitude of reasons like weather, falling trees, and excessive heat (which the Paris Agreement would slow down)
   
4. Cause Economic Decline: While it is true that there would be a slight economic decline, the numbers Trump used are grossly incorrect. He uses a rate of 0.55% per year but the actual numbers (provided by Resources for the Future) would be more around 0.2%.
   

There are also many possibilities that could stem from this decision in the future. First, other countries might obtain less motivation to fulfill their part in the accord; after all if the second largest producer of pollution doesn’t care about the environment, why should they? This would be a devastating blow on the environment as the Paris Agreement is calculated to have an overall reduction of nine-tenths of a degree, which is huge on the global scale. Another possibility, would be other countries placing a carbon tariff on the United States, having monumental impacts on American businesses and products, exactly contradicting Trump’s goal through leaving.

While it seems like a loss to us, it was definitely a huge “victory”, not just for Trump but for two of his most famous administrators like Stephen Bannon and Scott Pruitt, who you might remember from another one of our articles.

The rest of the world joined together to protest this heedless action, and a huge fraction of the protestors include world leaders such as Elon Musk and Emmanuel Macron. Elon Musk, the CEO of TESLA and SpaceX, previously played a role in two of Trump’s business advisory councils. However, immediately after Trump’s actions, the CEO announced he was leaving the presidential councils as he had vowed.

The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, also had a short, yet powerful statement on President Trump’s decision to withdraw. He reiterated precisely our thoughts: that in order to ensure the safety of our environment and our lives, the agreement is necessary to “make our planet great again”.

Many large companies such as Shell, PepsiCo, and Ford have also voiced their concerns. They all strongly support the fight for climate change and do not agree with Trump’s withdrawal of the agreement that was meant to majorly benefit the safety of our planet.

And we here at Dandilyonn believe in this as well. Just with our past walkathon we raised around $1200 to donate to this very cause and we will continue to fight for it no matter what it takes, because no price is more than that of our entire planet. It is little efforts like this that make such a big difference and we will keep at them for our own, and our friends' and family's futures.

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However, we would like to end on a somewhat happier note that the agreement isn’t something that the United States could just “pull out” of. Since it went into effect on November 4, 2016, it would be till November 4, 2019 before Trump is allowed to give a notice of withdrawal and another year to ratify it, placing it two days after the next presidential election. And you can rest assured that the Dandilyonn team will be certain to do everything in their power to make sure that this same man isn’t in office by that time.