President Donald Trump has already taken a stand on several international treaties that prevent the United States from achieving economic success. While he has mainly focused on dismantling unfair trade agreements, constituents are calling upon Trump to fulfill his campaign promise of removing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Treaty.
In 2016, President Obama bypassed the Senate to enter into the Pairs climate accord without Senate ratification. At the time, then-White House senior adviser Brian Deese defended that the legal agreement was an “executive agreement” and therefore did not require Congressional approval.
However, 195 countries have signed onto this agreement as if it were a treaty that has closed our coal plants and exported our car production. Now, Trump has the opportunity to change this executive overreach.
Analysis from The Australian’s Matt Ridley on May 8 reveals that the Paris climate agreement is extremely impractical. Ridley writes, “all the promises made by the U.S., China, the EU and the rest of the world, if implemented from the early 2000s to 2030, and then sustained through the rest of the century, would reduce the expected rise in global temperature by only 0.17°C in the year 2100. That is to say, instead of rising by 2, 3 or 4 degrees or so by the time our great grandchildren are adults, world average temperature would rise by 1.83, 2.83 or 3.83 degrees,” despite costing countries trillions to keep emissions down.
And even newer data is calling into question whether the global warming, which the Obama Administration attempted to solve, is even the problem.
Some researchers have told the Daily Star this week that global cooling rather than warming was becoming a threat, arguing that a reduction in solar activity was creating far greater of an impact to our ecosystem.
This is exactly the reason the Senate should have reviewed the Paris climate accord to begin with. However, since they never received that opportunity, Trump should rectify the situation.
Over 40 conservative organizations have come together to explain the importance of this to Trump. In a letter to the White House the groups explain, “Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Treaty is an integral part of your energy agenda. The Obama administration’s Nationally Determined Contribution (or NDC) to the Paris Climate Treaty commits the United States to take actions that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and by 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. Paris then requires a more ambitious NDC every five years in perpetuity.”
The group, including Americans for Limited Government, Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the CO2 Coalition, encourage Trump to submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification (that will likely fail), withdraw from the underlying UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and/or simply announce the intended withdrawal from the Paris climate accord in the four-year schedule specified within the treaty and continuing the process of repealing Obama’s regulations.
While a repeal of Obama’s harmful regulations should always be a priority, the letter writers encourage Trump to act quicker — submit the treaty for disapproval to the Senate and exit the UNFCCC. This will break the political backing for the treaty as well as removing funding for UN global warming projects, which the UNFCCC controls.
Trump campaigned against to end treaties that do not prioritize the United States’ success. Removing ourselves from the Paris climate accord — which is killing the economy — is the next major step in that mission. President Trump can bring back American jobs and innovation, but only without the pressures of these global regulations.
Natalia Castro is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government.
