Judgment of Paris — Walk Away From It

Washington Examiner covers the Paris Climate Agreement.

There’s already been much wailing and lamentation over President Trump’s intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. Billionaire Democratic donor Tom Steyer went so far as to call it a “traitorous act of war,” presumably because it hits him in his tender parts — which is to say, his wallet.

But despite such apocalyptic bloviating from Steyer and other Democrats, true environmental activists can rest assured that American withdrawal from the Paris agreement will do little to change global emissions. As one environmental activist and former NASA scientist said, it is “just worthless words. There is no action, just promises… It’s a fraud really, a fake.”

Without a mechanism to enforce promises, parties to the Paris agreement aren’t going to make the sacrifices to meet their lofty, ersatz, goals. If you need proof, just look at how many of our NATO allies meet their defense-spending promises — just 4 out of 27.

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To be sure, the Paris agreement could not have forced action, because it did not go through the proper processes to obtain legal legitimacy. But, as Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, wrote in a February 2016 essay, it “creates the legal framework for a permanent global coalition of nearly 200 foreign governments, legions of U.N. bureaucrats, and scores of green pressure groups, all primed to point fingers and cry ‘you promised, you promised,’ if future U.S. leaders attempt to repeal the [Clean Power Plan] or any other federal climate regulations.”

Read the full article at Washington Examiner.