Trump’s reported exit from Paris climate deal signals end of

[Blue]

Trump’s reported exit from Paris climate deal signals end of the American Century

President Donald Trump’s stunning words and actions to our European allies this week — culminating in reports that he will exit the historic Paris climate agreement — signal the end of the American Century.
Rather than strive to maintain the United States’ position as the leader of the free world, a role we have assigned to ourselves for decades, Trump is content with America the villain — the greedy and myopic country that killed humanity’s last, best hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change. Also, by abandoning clean energy, which is the one new sector capable of actually creating millions of high wage American jobs, Trump is officially handing the economic reins over to Europe and China.
Samantha Power, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in the Obama administration, echoed that sentiment on Twitter Wednesday morning.

“America is responsible, to herself as well as to history, for the world environment in which she lives,” wrote publisher Henry Luce in a famous February 17, 1941 Life magazine editorial, “The American Century.”
Luce was writing about America’s obligation to end its isolationism and enter World War II. But he had a broader purpose, to discuss a “fundamental issue which faces America as it faces no other nation,” an issue “deeper even than the immediate issue of war.”
That issue was whether America would assume the mantle of global leader. Luce explained that throughout our history, “this continent teemed with manifold projects and magnificent purposes. Above them all… was the triumphal purpose of freedom. It is in this spirit that all of us are called, each to his own measure of capacity, and each in the widest horizon of his vision, to create the first great American Century.”
In words that still ring true today, Luce described what would happen if America met the challenge and took a global leadership role — and what would happen if we retreated into isolationism:
If America meets it correctly, then, despite hosts of dangers and difficulties, we can look forward and move forward to a future worthy of men, with peace in our hearts. If we dodge the issue, we shall flounder for ten or 20 or 30 bitter years in a chartless and meaningless series of disasters.
And so the U.S. finds itself at the same crossroads today. After a disastrous European trip in which Trump offended many world leaders, refused to endorse our commitment to defend our NATO allies, and persuaded Germany that we aren’t a reliable partner, a decision to exit the Paris climate deal would be the last straw, a blunder of historical import.
Trump poised to push world’s best chance to avert climate catastrophe off a cliff

Saving the climate is like saving the Union: if you’re against it, you’re on the wrong side of history.
thinkprogress.org
By torpedoing the unanimous agreement among more than 190 nations aimed at sparing humanity decades, if not centuries, of misery, Trump will destroy America’s “soft power,” our ability to achieve outcomes we desire in other global negotiations.
Trump will be destroying the global influence that was at the core of Luce’s definition of the American Century: “to accept wholeheartedly our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation in the world and in consequence to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit.”
Ironically, by gutting domestic climate action and clean energy investment, Trump will also weaken the U.S. economically; other countries, particularly China, have indicated they intend to seize on the vast wealth and high paying jobs that come with leadership in clean energy and climate solutions, which will be a $50 trillion-plus market in the coming decades.
Trump’s budget sabotages America’s best chance to add millions of high-wage jobs

Trump guts clean energy funding as Beijing plans to invest $360 billion by 2020, creating 13 million jobs.
thinkprogress.org

Wake up Trumpet mofos! America is descending into Banana Republic status and fast. Notice the more frequent disruptions in your power and internet services? How about those pot-holed roads that you drive every day? But thank God he'll build The WALL!

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-paris-end-of-the-american-century-ec5ee0742f8a

[BenDhyan]

Golly gee.....

Trump Pulls Out of the Paris Climate Agreement

President Donald Trump has opted to withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate accords, meant to curb global warming, a decision that fulfills one of his campaign pledges but isolates Washington on the international stage.

“The United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord but begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris Accords or an entirely news transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its business, its workers, its people, its taxpayers,” Trump said. “So we’re getting out. So we will start to negotiate and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair.”

The United States will join the only two other nations — Syria and Nicaragua — who are not parties to the agreement, which former President Barack Obama agreed to in 2015. (Even with Thursday’s announcement, it will still take until 2020 to fully pull out of the pact, leaving a glimmer of possibility of a reversal.) Trump also announced that the United States would no longer contribute to the Green Climate Fund, a United Nations vehicle meant to help developing nations curb carbon emissions.

Under the terms of the voluntary accord, the United States pledged by 2025 to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent below their 2005 levels.

Now, that’s probably not going to happen. With Trump also gutting Obama’s new rules to clean up dirty power plants, there’s less federal effort to curb emissions.

But Trump’s decision won’t necessarily mean an abrupt about-face, either. Renewable energy has gotten much cheaper in recent years, making it much more competitive. Cheap natural gas continues to edge coal out of the electricity mix, thus helping lower emissions. And cities and states can still go their own way, offering financial support for renewable energy or setting their own climate-change targets.

California, for instance, has signed a pact with Canada and Mexico to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has also said his city will continue to uphold the accord. The mayor of Pittsburgh, which Trump singled out as a city he is defending by pulling out, said before the speech was over that the city will follow the Paris agreement.

Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy called Trump’s decision “embarrassing.”

“The decisions makes zero sense from a public health or economic perspective. It’s contrary to science and his obligation to protect American kids and future generations,” McCarthy said.

“This decision shows a stunning disregard for the wellbeing of people and the planet. President Trump will now have to answer for walking away from one of the most hard-fought and popular global achievements in recent memory,” added Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute, in a statement Thursday.

President Obama said Trump’s decision means the United States will “reject the future.”

Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, condemned Trump’s decision on Twitter. Elon Musk, the head of Tesla Motors and a member of Trump’s Business Advisory Council, announced he was stepping down.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/01/trump-pulls-out-of-the-paris-climate-agreement/

[seemslikeadream]

yes and see this thread for the World Nut Daily (Trump's Bible) bullshit on Climate

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40540

[seemslikeadream]

Governors of New York, California, and Washington announce the formation of the "United States Climate Alliance".

[Iamwhomiam]

Very depressing speech, filled with lies.

[seemslikeadream]

Emmanuel Macron‏Verified account
@EmmanuelMacron

Trump turns his back on the world

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... 5714beb773

[BenDhyan]

[Harvey]

That was Trump? On his own?

While we're busy being stupefied:

No bluffing: US Preparing To Attack North Korea

George Friedman, TruePublica

On 8 March, I wrote an analysis that said North Korea appeared to be crossing a red line set forth by the United States. And now, there are signs that military action on the Korean Peninsula is increasingly likely.

It’s no secret that the USS Carl Vinson has been near the peninsula for a few weeks. But now the USS Ronald Reagan, which is based near-theater in Japan, has joined it. The USS Nimitz, which is based in Washington state, is back in port, having recently completed a training exercise, as is the USS Theodore Roosevelt, farther south in San Diego. The US Navy has said that the Roosevelt would deploy again soon, though it neglected to mention a destination. Dispatching three carrier groups is sensible, if not necessary, for military action against North Korea, but it’s not actually clear what role the Navy would play in the mission.

But the mission itself is clear: If it were to attack North Korea, the United States would try to destroy its nuclear facilities and eliminate the southern artillery batteries aimed at Seoul. And it would do so primarily through the air.


In fact, the United States already has some 100 F-16 fighter aircraft in South Korea. They have been conducting exercises in South Korean airspace regularly for some time – notable insofar as these kinds of exercises often take place before an attack. Such was the case before Operation Desert Storm.

Air strikes by F-16s alone, however, are a foreboding prospect. North Korea has ample surface-to-air missiles, and it would be dangerous to send non-stealth aircraft such as the F-16 over targets without first suppressing its air defences and command and control centres. It would also imperil Seoul, which would quickly bear the brunt of North Korea’s response to US military action. But here, too, the United States is prepared. Strikes would likely be carried out in part by stealth bombers from Andersen Air Force Base, which is located nearby in Guam. (As it happens, the Guam Chamber of Commerce will soon be briefed on civil defence, terrorist threats and North Korea, according to a report published on 22 May. Tellingly, no attempt was made to hide the preparations, nor was any concern paid to how North Korea might respond.) The United States could, moreover, deploy the F-35 stealth aircraft it has had stationed in Japan since January. This way, the United States could attack artillery targets, and therefore mitigate the damage against Seoul, before it attacked air defence targets. The F-16s in theatre are equipped with weapons systems that are designed to target anti-aircraft capabilities, so they would extend their strikes to destroy air defences, opening the door for non-stealth defence aircraft.

It’s unclear whether the United States would deploy ground forces; doing so would almost certainly incur US causalities. If the air campaign against North Korea failed to destroy its intended targets, Washington would have to consider sending in special operations forces.

In any case, there’s still much we don’t know. We don’t know, for example, how reliable US intelligence is on the location and defences of potential targets. Intelligence is always flawed, and in the case of North Korea, Pyongyang, keenly aware of how the US would attack, has made every attempt to hide its capabilities. Any attack would begin by striking North Korean command centres, including political command centres. With this in mind, the North Koreans have probably developed a system by which command would be delegated to the field in the event top commanders were killed.

We also don’t know how exactly North Korea would counter an attack. Its leaders are well prepared, even seemingly cocky in their behaviour, which has all but dared Washington to attack. Either they are bluffing or they have viable options for a counter attack. Maybe they have a robust offensive capability. Maybe they can destroy US ships and aircraft. Maybe they are further along in their nuclear program than the US thought. Maybe their ballistic missiles can reach Guam.

One of the most important things to remember is that the North Koreans are neither ignorant nor psychotic. Strange as it may sound, ignorant psychotics don’t build nuclear weapons and missiles. Rational actors who feel cornered do.

Washington rightly takes the threat seriously; it wouldn’t be deploying its military so measuredly were that not the case. Going to war with someone you regard as a fool is the most foolish thing you can do, and there is no evidence that that would be the case with North Korea. It’s always best to overestimate your enemy.

In Washington, many will claim that if President Donald Trump orders an attack, he will have done so only for political reasons. But such accusations ignore US policy on North Korea, which has stood stalwart for more than a decade. (Barack Obama even warned Trump that North Korea would be his biggest challenge in foreign policy.) It was inevitable that Pyongyang’s strategy would bring it close to, or push it over, the red line. It just so happens that it did so under Trump. This is not a defence of Trump but a defence of our belief at Geopolitical Futures that imperatives, not personalities, dictate the actions of states.

In this case, the actions are telling: The United States is advertising its preparations for war – itself an act of deterrence – and the advertisement isn’t lost on North Korea. But it’s not a bluff; bluffing in such a way is expensive and pretty ineffective. From what we can tell, North Korea appears to assume that an attack is all but inevitable but a risk it is willing to take.

I suppose that Trump would return to the United States before he ordered an attack, but there is no way to know that. He’s scheduled to return on 27 May. Take that for what it’s worth.

http://truepublica.org.uk/global/no-blu ... rth-korea/

http://www.janes.com/article/71007/usn- ... fic-region

[seemslikeadream]

[MacCruiskeen]

That was Trump? On his own?

Yep. All on his own. Trump alone is robbing America of its hard-won reputation as a beacon to the nations and a world leader in environmental protection.

Next thing you know, Americans will start driving cars , using air-conditioning, deploying leafblowers, having a TV in every room, and sending their military across the globe to blow things up. It's all completely unprecedented, and it's all Trump's fault.

Worst of all: As everyone knows, the US Army has always been a very clean army, the cleanest in the world, a net contributor of cleanliness to the planet. Just look what Trump has done to it in the few months since he gained absolute power over 300 million fervently Green citizens:

U.S. Military Is World’s Biggest Polluter

By Whitney Webb

15 May 2017

Last week, mainstream media outlets gave minimal attention to the news that the U.S. Naval station in Virginia Beach had spilled an estimated 94,000 gallons of jet fuel into a nearby waterway, less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean.

While the incident was by no means as catastrophic as some other pipeline spills, it underscores an important yet little-known fact—that the U.S. Department of Defense is both the nation's and the world's, largest polluter.

Producing more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined, the U.S. Department of Defense has left its toxic legacy throughout the world in the form of depleted uranium, oil, jet fuel, pesticides, defoliants like Agent Orange and lead, among others.

In 2014, the former head of the Pentagon's environmental program told Newsweek that her office has to contend with 39,000 contaminated areas spread across 19 million acres just in the U.S. alone.

U.S. military bases, both domestic and foreign, consistently rank among some of the most polluted places in the world, as perchlorate and other components of jet and rocket fuel contaminate sources of drinking water, aquifers and soil. Hundreds of military bases can be found on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) list of Superfund sites, which qualify for clean-up grants from the government.

Almost 900 of the nearly 1,200 Superfund sites in the U.S. are abandoned military facilities or sites that otherwise support military needs, not counting the military bases themselves.

"Almost every military site in this country is seriously contaminated," John D. Dingell, a retired Michigan congressman and war veteran, told Newsweek in 2014. Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina is one such base. Lejeune's contamination became widespread and even deadly after its groundwater was polluted with a sizable amount of carcinogens from 1953 to 1987.

However, it was not until this February that the government allowed those exposed to chemicals at Lejeune to make official compensation claims. Numerous bases abroad have also contaminated local drinking water supplies, most famously the Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa.


Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. tested 66 nuclear weapons near Bikini atoll. Populations living nearby in the Marshall Islands were exposed to measurable levels of radioactive fallout from these tests. National Cancer Institute

In addition, the U.S., which has conducted more nuclear weapons tests than all other nations combined, is also responsible for the massive amount of radiation that continues to contaminate many islands in the Pacific Ocean. The Marshall Islands, where the U.S. dropped more than sixty nuclear weapons between 1946 and 1958, are a particularly notable example. Inhabitants of the Marshall Islands and nearby Guam continue to experience an exceedingly high rate of cancer.

The American Southwest was also the site of numerous nuclear weapons tests that contaminated large swaths of land. Navajo Indian reservations have been polluted by long-abandoned uranium mines where nuclear material was obtained by U.S. military contractors.

One of the most recent testaments to the U.S. military's horrendous environmental record is Iraq. U.S. military action there has resulted in the desertification of 90 percent of Iraqi territory, crippling the country's agricultural industry and forcing it to import more than 80 percent of its food. The U.S.' use of depleted uranium in Iraq during the Gulf War also caused a massive environmental burden for Iraqis. In addition, the U.S. military's policy of using open-air burn pits to dispose of waste from the 2003 invasion has caused a surge in cancer among U.S. servicemen and Iraqi civilians alike.

While the U.S. military's past environmental record suggests that its current policies are not sustainable, this has by no means dissuaded the U.S. military from openly planning future contamination of the environment through misguided waste disposal efforts. Last November, the U.S. Navy announced its plan to release 20,000 tons of environmental "stressors," including heavy metals and explosives, into the coastal waters of the U.S. Pacific Northwest over the course of this year.

The plan, laid out in the Navy's Northwest Training and Testing Environmental Impact Statement, fails to mention that these "stressors" are described by the EPA as known hazards, many of which are highly toxic at both acute and chronic levels.

The 20,000 tons of "stressors" mentioned in the Environmental Impact Statement do not account for the additional 4.7 to 14 tons of "metals with potential toxicity" that the Navy plans to release annually, from now on, into inland waters along the Puget Sound in Washington state.

In response to concerns about these plans, a Navy spokeswoman said that heavy metals and even depleted uranium are no more dangerous than any other metal, a statement that represents a clear rejection of scientific fact. It seems that the very U.S. military operations meant to "keep Americans safe" come at a higher cost than most people realize—a cost that will be felt for generations to come both within the U.S. and abroad.

Reposted with permission from our media associate MintPress News.

https://www.ecowatch.com/military-large ... 60609.html

It was Trump who dropped those bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by the way. He also invented napalm and Agent Orange, and the tumble dryer. It's a pity more people don't read history.

[seemslikeadream]

hey Inspector Clouseau .....Churchill massacred 6 million Indians and kinda forgot about them so what is your point? Why don't you go back to reading World Nut Daily and watching FauxNews

[seemslikeadream]

Trump has made a grave mistake for our planet - President

Climate – Paris Agreement/United States – Statement by M. Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic
Paris, 1 June 2017
My dear compatriots,
I have decided to speak before you, mere hours after the announcement by the President of the United States of America, because these are serious times.
I have taken note of the American President’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on the climate. I respect this sovereign decision, but I regret it. I believe that he has made a mistake, for the interests of his country and people, and a grave one for the future of our planet.
I have just spoken to President Trump and told him that.
Climate change is one of the great challenges of our times. What still seemed questionable just a few years ago is now clear and evident to us all. Biodiversity is under threat, while climate disruption is wreaking famine across several continents, devastating regions and forcing people from their home countries. In France itself, we are seeing the consequences of this disruption every year.
If we do nothing, our children will live in a world of migration, wars, shortages and disappearing archipelagos and coastal cities, caused by these changes. That has already begun.
This is not the future we want for ourselves. This is not the future we want for our children. This is not the future we want for the world.
France’s role is to fight these battles, in which humanity as a whole is at stake. That is why France has placed itself on the front line of the fight against climate change, resolutely committed in all international negotiations. In December 2015, France successfully pulled off the exploit of bringing 195 countries to sign a common commitment: the Paris Agreement on the climate.
So yes, tonight I am declaring to you, loud and clear: we will not renegotiate a less ambitious agreement. Whatever the circumstances.
Tonight, France calls upon all signatory countries to remain within the framework of the Paris Agreement, to remain equal to the responsibilities that are incumbent upon us and to give no ground.
Tonight, I want to declare to the United States: France believes in you. The world believes in you. I know that you are a very great nation, and that the United States was founded for the triumph of freedom, truth and reason against ignorance and darkness wherever it stands. But it is important to be very clear: on the climate, there is no Plan B, for there is no Planet B.
So yes, we will continue.
To all scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and committed citizens who are disappointed by the decision of the President of the United States, I want to say this: you will find a second home in France. I call out to you: come to work here, with us, on concrete solutions for the climate.
Tonight, the United States has turned its back on the world. But France will not turn its back on the Americans. I assure you, my dear compatriots and those who are listening, wherever you are in the world, that France will not give up this fight.
Of course, we would have preferred to fight this battle alongside the United States of America. For they are our allies, and will remain our allies, in the fight against terrorism, on many defence and security issues, and in many industrial and economic areas. But that is how it is.
The door has not closed, and it never will close to this nation to which we owe so much. But there are still many of us who maintain our determination.
France will therefore play its role in the world, as that is what is expected of it. This very evening, with Germany and Italy, we were keen to reaffirm our commitment to the Paris Agreement. A few minutes ago, I spoke to the German Chancellor, and in the coming days we will take strong initiatives in this direction. On Saturday, I will meet the Indian Prime Minister in Paris and will discuss this subject with him. In the coming days, I will speak to the main decision-makers to assure myself of their commitment.
Lastly, France will propose a concrete action plan in order to enhance its attractiveness for researchers and businesses in the area of the ecological transition and will take tangible steps, including in Europe and Africa. I have asked the government to work actively on this and I will convene it next week to discuss the subject.
We will not merely fulfil our past commitments. Starting this evening, France has to be even more ambitious for the future – for our future.
Long live the Republic! Long live France!
https://uk.ambafrance.org/Trump-has-mad ... -President

[seemslikeadream]

Paris Decision Was Driven By the President’s Rage and Fear

By JOSH MARSHALL Published JUNE 1, 2017 7:34 PM
16801Views
Subscribe to TPM Prime for a better reading experience, exclusive features and to support our reporters' award-winning journalism.

Let me expand on what I said below about President Trump’s climate decision being driven by emotion and rage.

A friend wrote in and said: Wait, you don’t think this was about the battle between Trump’s “nationalist” and “globalist” advisors, his need to feed his core voters and stuff like that? You think it was driven by a spat with Merkel?

Yes, of course, it was those things. But the decision was driven by contingent events and emotion. Here is what I mean.

I told someone today that if you’d asked me on November 9th, I would have been shocked that it took Trump this long to pull out of the Paris accord. He ran on doing so and talked about it constantly. But he also talked about moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. He railed against Goldman Sachs. He said he was going to build a ridiculous wall along the US Mexico border. He did and said a million other things that he promptly forgot about or came up with some excuse for not doing.

There’s always been a core of advisors that wanted this outcome. But if not for the events of the last few weeks I think we’d have remained in the Paris accord. Trump got into a growing fight with Europe. France rejected Bannon’s favorite Le Pen. He met with and got disrespected and criticized by the leaders of NATO and the EU. He got mad. Both Merkel and Macron spoke about him as a bully and a child. Macron has happily spoken publicly about over-manning Trump when they met in person.

This isn’t about climate and it isn’t about Trump’s base. It’s about sticking it to the leaders of Europe. That’s what gave the Bannonites the edge. That and one other thing.

Trump is scared. He’s entering a a widening gyre of political crisis over Russia. He’s scared and he’s angry and he needs friends. So he’s more and more likely to hug his base – both the most aggressive advisors and the most committed supporters. He’s trying to bring back Corey Lewandowski, his wildest and most troubling-driving advisor who has the unshakable loyalty and lickspittledom Trump now requires. Indeed, we can take it as a given that as the Russia scandal crisis deepens Trump will become more aggressive and more extreme in his policies both to maintain his emotional equilibrium and reinforce his backing from a shrinking base of supporters. This is as certain as night follows day.

It’s worth noting, if it is not obvious, that the growing rupture in Trump’s relations with Europe is also driven by the Russia issue and Trump’s desire to hamstring or break apart the EU and NATO. Whether Trump’s affinity for Russia is legitimate or corrupt, the reality itself is indisputable. That drives his hostility to the EU and NATO.

In any case, this is about wanting to lash out at enemies, strike a blow in a context in which people can’t easily fight back and try to assert control over a situation that increasingly feels (and is) out of control. Rewrite the last four weeks, leave Trump less angry and threatened, I’m confident the US would still be in the Paris accord. That’s how he operates.

The entire outcome was driven by the President’s current, besieged, emotional state.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/par ... re-1062334

Donald Trump was “bewildered” after French President Emmanuel Macron put him in his place
By Bill Palmer
Updated: 10:58 pm EDT Thu Jun 1, 2017 | 4
Home » Opinion

Donald Trump’s increasingly erratic, inappropriate and disturbing behavior during and since his overseas trip has left many Americans concerned that he may in a rapid state of psychological decline. Now comes word from inside Trump’s own White House that there is indeed something fundamentally broken with his mental state and decision making process.



During the overseas trip, newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron decided to put Donald Trump in his place by manhandling him during their handshake, a tactic which Trump himself had been using to try to bully the leaders of America’s other allies. Macron then went on to publicly acknowledge that he’d done it on purpose. That has led Trump’s own staff to make a shocking admission.



According to a report from the Washington Post, Donald Trump’s own staffers say the handshake incident left Trump “bewildered” (link). Trump’s staff is seemingly unaware that it’s never a good idea to describe the person holding the office of President of the United as being “bewildered,” because in so doing, they just admitted that he’s psychologically incompetent.



The report goes on to suggest that Trump made his decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord at least partially based on the handshake in question. So not only has Trump reached a point of psychosis where he’s making a decision that harms all Americans based on a mere handshake he didn’t like, he’s also too mentally vacant to grasp that the Paris Climate Accord didn’t really have anything to do with France. There is a psychologically incompetent and outright psychotic individual occupying the White House, and even his own staff is now publicly acknowledging it. The Republicans in Congress are derelict in their duties by refusing to impeach and remove him.

[seemslikeadream]

[Blue]

5 claims Trump used to justify pulling the US out of the Paris agreement — and the reality

Job losses

Donald Trump suggested that US compliance with the Paris accord could "cost America as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025, according to the National Economic Research Associates."

The report on which that claim is based has been widely criticized by environmental groups. As the World Resources Institute pointed out, the NERA study uses a scenario in which the US industrial sector is forced to reduce the country’s overall emissions by nearly 40% in 20 years. That calculation doesn’t take into account the role of other sectors in reducing emissions.

The WRI also faults the NERA report for assuming a low rate of clean energy innovation. That rate was calculated by the Department of Energy as a minimal case that “may underestimate advances.” What’s more likely, the National Resources Defense Council suggests, is that the development of clean energy technologies will accelerate. Even since 2016, solar costs have decreased by about 8%.

Today, solar jobs vastly outnumber those in coal, and those numbers continue to grow — a recent report from the International Renewably Energy Agency estimated that employment in the solar industry expanded 17 times faster than the US economy overall in 2016.

Just a tiny temperature increase

The 2015 Arctic sea ice summertime minimum was 699,000 square miles below the 1981-2010 average, shown here as a gold line in this visual representation of a NASA analysis of satellite data released September 14, 2015.NASA via Reuters
Trump also suggested that the Paris agreement would only lead to a minuscule reduction in global temperature.

"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," he said. "Tiny, tiny amount."

A detailed analysis of the impact of the Paris goals by Climate Interactive suggests those numbers are off.

Global temperature is going to rise — there is no scenario in which there will be an overall reduction. But let’s assume that Trump meant a reduction from the projections of temperature increases that would happen without the Paris agreement.

Under a “business as usual” scenario in which past trends continue, the expected temperature increase in 2100 for this scenario is 4.2 degrees C (7.6 degrees F). If all nations fully achieve their Paris pledges, however, the average global surface temperature in 2100 is expected to be 3.3 degrees. That means the accord would lead to a reduction of nine tenths of one degree, not two.

Nine tenths of a degree on a global scale is huge. Since the industrial revolution, average global temperatures have risen 0.99 degrees Celsius, according to NASA. That's not so far from .90, and we’re already seeing plenty of dramatic changes around the planet. Even a reduction of two tenths of a degree would not be “tiny” — it’d be 20% of the increase we’ve already seen.

Trump went on: "In fact," he said, "14 days of carbon emissions from China alone would wipe out the gains from America — and this is an incredible statistic — would totally wipe out the gains from America's expected reductions in the year 2030."

That claim also does not appear to be accurate. With the US abandoning its commitments, Climate Interactive calculates that by 2025, the country will emit 6.7 gigatons of CO2 per year, instead of the 5.3 gigatons of CO2 per year that the US would have emitted under the agreement.

As of 2013, China emitted 9.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year — which comes out to 0.025 gigatons per day. 14 days' worth would be 0.35 gigatons — far less than the annual US decrease.