The Lonely Road Less Taken- Trump Withdraws from Paris Accord

The Lonely Road Less Taken- Trump Withdraws from Paris Accord

On Thursday afternoon, President Donald Trump fulfilled yet another of the many promises he made during his 2016 presidential campaign, by formally withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement, an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Drafted at the close of 2015 and signed by Barack Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry in April of 2016 the Paris Agreement, which had no congressional approval by the way, was put into force four days before the election that swept Donald Trump into office, on November 8th, 2016. Effectively, the agreement committed the United States to paying $ 100 billion per year into a fund that would purportedly finance green-energy development in emerging nations, and lead towards a global regulatory commission that would determine which sources of energy would be permissible to pursue. In other words, it would cede the power of permit away from the sovereignty of the United States, and onto an international body answerable to no one.

That the Obama Administration would so actively pursue such an agreement, was part and parcel of their mindset to diminish the economic prowess of the United States and socialize our national wealth across the globe. Predictably, Obama had the support of most all of the world’s nations to sign onto the agreement, including China and India (the world’s worst polluters of greenhouse gasses) whose own participation in the provisions of the agreement were conveniently delayed until 2030. Leave it to the rest of the world’s governments to be so generous with the wealth of the United States, whose taxpayers are already footing the bill for most of the international security in Europe and East Asia. Comparatively speaking, the financial burden of the Paris Agreement on those nations is minimal, once again attesting to an international community more interested in socializing American wealth that reducing global temperatures.

Because the United States is so heavily dependent upon coal and other fossil fuels for its energy needs, the associated taxes pursuant to the agreement would have landed most heavily upon American consumers, whose electrical bills would increase by $ 21,000 per year by the middle of the next decade- yet another financial burden not shared by our European counterparts.

Recognizing how foolish the Obama administration was to sign such an agreement, and understanding the blatant unfairness to U.S interests inherent in the Paris agreement, Donald Trump campaigned for his office vowing to withdraw from it entirely. When the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom scoffed at Trump’s request to re-negotiate the terms of the agreement to be more equitable to the United States, he had no choice but to follow through on his campaign promise.

The reaction to Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement was equally predictable, with Democrats and their collusive allies in the mainstream media sounding apocalyptic warnings that the decision would lead towards catastrophic rises in sea levels and temperatures, not to mention Kerry’s assertion that our children with asthma would suffer ever more so, as a direct result of Trump’s decision. Globalists abounding within the ranks of anti-Trump Republicans bemoaned the loss of American leadership in all things climate, despite the fact that Americans have done more to actually reduce carbon-based emissions than other nations- and this was done without any international agreement, to boot. The learned classes of political correctness, fully steeped in what has become a veritable religion of man-made climate change, were quick to assail the folly of Trump’s decision.

Ironically, had Trump decided not to withdraw from the Paris agreement, all of these same forces would have derided the president for not living up to the promises he made during the campaign. In essence, Trump was once again placed into a stacked game of political hypocrisy where he cannot possibly win, regardless of what he does.

Leadership, true leadership, often requires the kind of courage that entails a journey along a lonely road, a road less taken by the weak and unwise. The lonely road on which President Trump has ventured, in his decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement, is not unlike countless other instances where he has sought not the approval of the world, but rather the salvation of the nation which elected him into office. Donald Trump may never be as globally popular as Barack Obama or either of the Clintons, but in serving the interests of the American people and in putting the welfare of our citizens first and foremost, he may well prove to be one of the greatest leaders this country ever knew, and one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States.

 

-Drew Nickell, 2 June 2017

© 2017 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

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