7 ms·

Can someone give me pros and cons of this move (serious responses only)? Thanks

davesque 9y ago
I think the only way anyone could argue there are any pros is if they could convince me that Trump has a different long-term plan to address climate change. Unfortunately, all of his actions up to this point indicate that he doesn't have any such plan. I really wish people would stop trying to understand and rationalize this man's actions. He has no rational for what he does other than his own short-lived whims and the general selfishness and narcissism that underlies his world view.
- Danihan 9y ago
  Thanks for clarifying the pros and cons of this policy without inserting any of your personal bias!
  - davesque 9y ago
    You're welcome.
- samsonradu 9y ago
  Well, not that I am defending him, but in his speech he said the deal is a burdain on the US industry while China and India are polluting as hell. This is something that might be factually right, but still not something to aspire to.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  That's a Republican orthodoxy, not just Trump. Climate change either doesn't occur, or if it occurs it's not man made, if it's man made nothing can be done. In any case, doing anything is job killing and anti freedom. I think Trump himself doesn't care.
  - MadSax 9y ago
    I don't think anyone argues that it doesn't occur, not even Republicans. The focus is on the extent of man's impact and what should be done about it. From the Republican point of view the alarmists have lost all credibility since about the 70s or 80s.
  - optimuspaul 9y ago
    Seems to me that doing something would actually create jobs, but maybe not enough to offset those lost? Shortsighted is what it really is. Who cares if it's job killing if the alternative is civilization killing.
- giarc 9y ago
  Many large corporations have come out against this decision (P&G, Coca Cola, GE, FB, G, 3M, Dow etc). So if he's not doing this because of lobbying from them, why is he doing this? Lobbying from O&G companies? Or is it just pure ignorance?
  - marcell 9y ago
    > Lobbying from O&G companies Exxon Mobil's current and previous CEO were in favor of the Paris Accords. The previous CEO is also Trump's secretary of state. > Or is it just pure ignorance? There are vague claims that this will bring back manufacturing jobs, bring back oil coal jobs, etc. I don't know what the real reasons are, if any.
    - mywittyname 9y ago
      I speculate that Exxon Mobile's executive team is in support of it for selfish reasons. I'm not authority, but I bet it's easier for them to operate in foreign countries when the corporation's country of origin is involved in an international treaty because they can more easily claim to be in compliance of the law.
  - creaghpatr 9y ago
    The vast majority of companies in America are not Fortune 500 companies. The companies you listed would benefit disproportionately from the agreement because smaller businesses would struggle to meet the cost of compliance without the global scale. The number of American voters in those companies probably totals out to 2-3M tops, in a country of 350M.
    - giarc 9y ago
      I guess my comment was more about the idea or common thought that governments are under the thumb of the large corporations (those with the resources for large lobbying firms). Therefore, if these corporations are against this decision, who is Trump doing this for? Polls have shown majority of Americans are in favour of staying in the agreement (although I haven't seen the numbers broken down by party lines). So what is his motivation? Ironically this was a campaign promise, and the American public voted him in, so for once a politician is keeping their promise.
- okreallywtf 9y ago
  That also assumes that whatever economic gains will be greater than the potential gains we could make by creating exportable renewable technology and the benefits of creating large numbers of sustainable energy jobs. Then you have to account for the fact that as pollution (and therefore, CO2) is reduced, air quality improves, cancer rates decrease and all of the other health benefits related to airborn pollutants. We are looking at an America without those things, or at least with renewables being adopted slower and with more resistance from the federal government than before. I'm ashamed really, I'm especially ashamed by all the poor/middle class people who are actually proud of this just because it makes liberals and europeans unhappy.
- empath75 9y ago
  Trump's position amounts to hostage taking. Give us lots of money or we'll destroy the planet. It would be more honest if he did it with nukes.
scrollaway 9y ago
Decent thread on it: https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/6eey64/what_are_the_pros_and_cons_of_trump_pulling_out/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/6eey64/wha... TLDR; the only positive argument you can make about it is that with the current administration, the pact wouldn't have been respected anyway so it opens the avenue for others things.
chestervonwinch 9y ago
See: https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/19380/what-are-trumps-incentives-for-withdrawing-from-the-paris-climate-agreement https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/19380/what-are-...
pseudometa 9y ago
On the pro side, Trump can say he followed through with a campaign promise. The accord was non-binding self-enforced, so from a day-to-day business impact, not much changes from regular Trump policy setting. On the con side, foreign relations will be stressed and global climate policy will be set without US corporate input (possibly a good thing?).
microcolonel 9y ago
Pro: As sergiotapia mentioned, good for business because it is costly to comply. It may also not have ended up having much positive impact on the environment, there are people who can argue that for you. Con: People who support the pact symbolically, not necessarily having any of the expertise or knowledge required to consider it, will go into a blind rage over it; actual climate scientists will be considerably more calm.
mmilano 9y ago
I watched the announcement w/o knowing much about it. He justified the decision by saying: - We're paying 100b/year when other developed countries do not have to. - Spending on that is unaccounted for. - The impact will be (only) a 2/10 Celcius reduction in temperature by 2100 - The positive impact by 2030 is the equivalent of what China pollutes in 14 days. Just stating what was said. I don't know which are facts.
- fudgie 9y ago
  According to Michael E. Mann, in 2100 it's +4.5C with no action, +3.5C with just the Paris Accord, and +1.8C with ratcheting up. (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBQpulkWAAE2mrc.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBQpulkWAAE2mrc.jpg)
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - sparkzilla 9y ago
    Would that be the 'Nobel prize winner' Dr Mann, who massaged the so-called hockey stick data leading to all this climate change/global warming hysteria in the first place? Hardly a credible source of anything IMHO.
    - glup 9y ago
      cite your sources please
      - sparkzilla 9y ago
        https://www.amazon.com/22A-Disgrace-Profession-22-Steyn-editor/dp/0986398330/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482417009&sr=1-1&keywords=Steyn+disgrace+to+the+profession&linkCode=sl1&tag=steyn-20&linkId=19e34bc537199fe881f1c2d288a7c5c1 https://www.amazon.com/22A-Disgrace-Profession-22-Steyn-edit...
        deleted 9y ago
Mikeb85 9y ago
It's not really about immediate pros and cons. The Paris accords don't actually hold nations to any sort of immediate reduction in CO2 emissions. They call for nations to start reducing their emissions in 2020, and progress to a final target in about half a century. Obama's pledge wasn't to even be realised until 2025. Most nations are implementing various carbon taxes in an attempt to reduce emissions, the obvious is that no carbon tax means no additional tax on businesses and transportation. This could be considered an upside. Downside? Who knows, the US never really implemented anything anyway, so practically nothing will change. Ultimately, potential issues will be global warming on a catastrophic level. Then again, that may happen with or without the US attempting to reduce emissions.
Danihan 9y ago
The deal is unenforceable, very expensive, and most likely will fail. Also, China emits twice as much greenhouse gas as the United States.
- tzs 9y ago
  > Also, China emits twice as much greenhouse gas as the United States. Not per capita, which is what is relevant when it comes to setting a country's policies.
  - Danihan 9y ago
    So as long as your country is overflowing with poverty-stricken people, you're a role model for solidly low carbon emissions per capita? Got it..
    - dguaraglia 9y ago
      Oh, moving the goalposts. The classical right-wing strategy.
      - Danihan 9y ago
        How is that moving the goalposts? Any poor, overpopulated country is going to have low per-capita carbon emissions, true or false? They also have a lower quality of life and poor GDP. Not exactly a positive goal to shoot for.
        dguaraglia 9y ago
        You started by saying China emits double the amount of greenhouse gasses the US does. Someone pointed out that it's still lower on a per-capita basis, so you switched tack to "oh, well, yeah, but... WHY DO POOR COUNTRIES GET A PASS!" That, my friend, is moving the goalposts. So you want the US, richest nation in the world, to be held to the same standards as developing countries. Even though, in our economy, pushing for green energy actually generates more jobs than trying to bring back polluting industries. What, exactly, is there to gain from that?
slededit 9y ago
You need to separate the details of the deal from the goal its attempting to achieve. The deal itself limits the US more than other countries which pollute more in absolute terms, and results in wealth transfers to those countries (directly). Given the relative wealth of the nation's involved I think the deal was fair. But that is a debatable point. The USA doesn't need this deal in place to limit its own emissions although its unlikely Trump would put much effort into it.
throwaway-1209 9y ago
Pros: the US was signing up for a _minimum_ of $100B/yr in foreign aid to help others implement the accords. When you're up to your ears in debt that's kind of stupid. Cons: estimates say that the climate will be warmer by 0.3 degrees Celsius by 2100. Assuming estimates are in fact right (which they historically haven't been) this could have devastating effects elsewhere in the world.
- surveilmebro 9y ago
  For anyone taking this comment seriously: verify the numbers for yourself. The poster has given the lower bound of the confidence interval in positing that we will see 0.3C warming by 2100. The latest assessment puts warming at 3.7C (6.67F!) under the "Business as Usual" RCP8.5 scenario. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_Pathways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_P... Edit -- not to mention that climate models are quite good at reproducing the observed changes: https://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-Models-Show-Remarkable-Agreement-with-Recent-Surface-Warming.html https://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-Models-Show-Remarka...
  - throwaway-1209 9y ago
    That's if _everyone_ withdraws. That's not what's happening. 0.3 degrees is if the US withdraws but everyone else proceeds as planned. But we aren't even withdrawing per se. Immediately after announcing his decision, Trump also announced his willingness to re-negotiate the accords on better terms (by which I think he means not spending $100/B a year on something that other countries aren't even legally bound by). And climate models predict things just fine as long as you pick the ones that are somewhat accurate in retrospect. That's not what prediction is. Prediction is when, like Al Gore, you say that in 15 years we'll all be underwater, and it doesn't happen. If you bet your money on the accuracy of the current models you will lose.
    - surveilmebro 9y ago
      Complete nonsense on both counts. First of all, consider that the most visible public debate about this has centered on whether it is even possible to limit warming to 2C. Start by reading the two links I posted. If you would like to learn more, the IPCC reports are genuinely well written and accessible: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/ I would hope that at least on HN we could all agree on a shared objective reality and the validity of the scientific method. Your claims sound like something straight out of a Heartland brochure.
dguaraglia 9y ago
Pros: "it's the opposite of what Obama and Libruls wanted!". That's good enough for some of the Republican base, but that's about it. Most of the economic growth in the US has come from the clean energy industry and from improving current industries to be less polluting. Being able to burn coal and fuel 24/7 just "because we can" isn't going to make the country more productive. It's just a canard. Cons: - US losing leadership position on everything related to climate change - US opening itself to tariffs from other countries that are in the Paris agreement - US looking like a regressive regime that does stupid shit just to get headlines My guess is the third one will have the biggest impact.
microcolonel 9y ago
Here's a video which contains an argument that the accord is largely pointless, because China isn't just going to stick its head in the sand and go back to a pre-industrial economy tomorrow: https://youtu.be/QOFhpoDY0As https://youtu.be/QOFhpoDY0As James Hansen, a former NASA climate scientist, previously described the paris accord as "a fraud". He's describing this from the perspective of knowing it's not enough to do anything significant, and incredibly expensive. [0] [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/12/james-hansen-climate-change-paris-talks-fraud https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/12/james-ha...

I think the only way anyone could argue there are any pros is if they could convince me that Trump has a different long-term plan to address climate change. Unfortunately, all of his actions up to this point indicate that he doesn't have any such plan. I really wish people would stop trying to understand and rationalize this man's actions. He has no rational for what he does other than his own short-lived whims and the general selfishness and narcissism that underlies his world view.

Danihan 9y ago
Thanks for clarifying the pros and cons of this policy without inserting any of your personal bias!
- davesque 9y ago
  You're welcome.
samsonradu 9y ago
Well, not that I am defending him, but in his speech he said the deal is a burdain on the US industry while China and India are polluting as hell. This is something that might be factually right, but still not something to aspire to.
maxxxxx 9y ago
That's a Republican orthodoxy, not just Trump. Climate change either doesn't occur, or if it occurs it's not man made, if it's man made nothing can be done. In any case, doing anything is job killing and anti freedom. I think Trump himself doesn't care.
- MadSax 9y ago
  I don't think anyone argues that it doesn't occur, not even Republicans. The focus is on the extent of man's impact and what should be done about it. From the Republican point of view the alarmists have lost all credibility since about the 70s or 80s.
- optimuspaul 9y ago
  Seems to me that doing something would actually create jobs, but maybe not enough to offset those lost? Shortsighted is what it really is. Who cares if it's job killing if the alternative is civilization killing.
giarc 9y ago
Many large corporations have come out against this decision (P&G, Coca Cola, GE, FB, G, 3M, Dow etc). So if he's not doing this because of lobbying from them, why is he doing this? Lobbying from O&G companies? Or is it just pure ignorance?
- marcell 9y ago
  > Lobbying from O&G companies Exxon Mobil's current and previous CEO were in favor of the Paris Accords. The previous CEO is also Trump's secretary of state. > Or is it just pure ignorance? There are vague claims that this will bring back manufacturing jobs, bring back oil coal jobs, etc. I don't know what the real reasons are, if any.
  - mywittyname 9y ago
    I speculate that Exxon Mobile's executive team is in support of it for selfish reasons. I'm not authority, but I bet it's easier for them to operate in foreign countries when the corporation's country of origin is involved in an international treaty because they can more easily claim to be in compliance of the law.
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  The vast majority of companies in America are not Fortune 500 companies. The companies you listed would benefit disproportionately from the agreement because smaller businesses would struggle to meet the cost of compliance without the global scale. The number of American voters in those companies probably totals out to 2-3M tops, in a country of 350M.
  - giarc 9y ago
    I guess my comment was more about the idea or common thought that governments are under the thumb of the large corporations (those with the resources for large lobbying firms). Therefore, if these corporations are against this decision, who is Trump doing this for? Polls have shown majority of Americans are in favour of staying in the agreement (although I haven't seen the numbers broken down by party lines). So what is his motivation? Ironically this was a campaign promise, and the American public voted him in, so for once a politician is keeping their promise.
okreallywtf 9y ago
That also assumes that whatever economic gains will be greater than the potential gains we could make by creating exportable renewable technology and the benefits of creating large numbers of sustainable energy jobs. Then you have to account for the fact that as pollution (and therefore, CO2) is reduced, air quality improves, cancer rates decrease and all of the other health benefits related to airborn pollutants. We are looking at an America without those things, or at least with renewables being adopted slower and with more resistance from the federal government than before. I'm ashamed really, I'm especially ashamed by all the poor/middle class people who are actually proud of this just because it makes liberals and europeans unhappy.
empath75 9y ago
Trump's position amounts to hostage taking. Give us lots of money or we'll destroy the planet. It would be more honest if he did it with nukes.

scrollaway 9y ago

Decent thread on it: https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/6eey64/what_are_the_pros_and_cons_of_trump_pulling_out/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/6eey64/wha... TLDR; the only positive argument you can make about it is that with the current administration, the pact wouldn't have been respected anyway so it opens the avenue for others things.

chestervonwinch 9y ago

See: https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/19380/what-are-trumps-incentives-for-withdrawing-from-the-paris-climate-agreement https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/19380/what-are-...

pseudometa 9y ago

On the pro side, Trump can say he followed through with a campaign promise. The accord was non-binding self-enforced, so from a day-to-day business impact, not much changes from regular Trump policy setting. On the con side, foreign relations will be stressed and global climate policy will be set without US corporate input (possibly a good thing?).

microcolonel 9y ago

Pro: As sergiotapia mentioned, good for business because it is costly to comply. It may also not have ended up having much positive impact on the environment, there are people who can argue that for you. Con: People who support the pact symbolically, not necessarily having any of the expertise or knowledge required to consider it, will go into a blind rage over it; actual climate scientists will be considerably more calm.

mmilano 9y ago

I watched the announcement w/o knowing much about it. He justified the decision by saying: - We're paying 100b/year when other developed countries do not have to. - Spending on that is unaccounted for. - The impact will be (only) a 2/10 Celcius reduction in temperature by 2100 - The positive impact by 2030 is the equivalent of what China pollutes in 14 days. Just stating what was said. I don't know which are facts.

fudgie 9y ago
According to Michael E. Mann, in 2100 it's +4.5C with no action, +3.5C with just the Paris Accord, and +1.8C with ratcheting up. (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBQpulkWAAE2mrc.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBQpulkWAAE2mrc.jpg)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- sparkzilla 9y ago
  Would that be the 'Nobel prize winner' Dr Mann, who massaged the so-called hockey stick data leading to all this climate change/global warming hysteria in the first place? Hardly a credible source of anything IMHO.
  - glup 9y ago
    cite your sources please
    - sparkzilla 9y ago
      https://www.amazon.com/22A-Disgrace-Profession-22-Steyn-editor/dp/0986398330/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482417009&sr=1-1&keywords=Steyn+disgrace+to+the+profession&linkCode=sl1&tag=steyn-20&linkId=19e34bc537199fe881f1c2d288a7c5c1 https://www.amazon.com/22A-Disgrace-Profession-22-Steyn-edit...
      - deleted 9y ago

Mikeb85 9y ago

It's not really about immediate pros and cons. The Paris accords don't actually hold nations to any sort of immediate reduction in CO2 emissions. They call for nations to start reducing their emissions in 2020, and progress to a final target in about half a century. Obama's pledge wasn't to even be realised until 2025. Most nations are implementing various carbon taxes in an attempt to reduce emissions, the obvious is that no carbon tax means no additional tax on businesses and transportation. This could be considered an upside. Downside? Who knows, the US never really implemented anything anyway, so practically nothing will change. Ultimately, potential issues will be global warming on a catastrophic level. Then again, that may happen with or without the US attempting to reduce emissions.

Danihan 9y ago

The deal is unenforceable, very expensive, and most likely will fail. Also, China emits twice as much greenhouse gas as the United States.

tzs 9y ago
> Also, China emits twice as much greenhouse gas as the United States. Not per capita, which is what is relevant when it comes to setting a country's policies.
- Danihan 9y ago
  So as long as your country is overflowing with poverty-stricken people, you're a role model for solidly low carbon emissions per capita? Got it..
  - dguaraglia 9y ago
    Oh, moving the goalposts. The classical right-wing strategy.
    - Danihan 9y ago
      How is that moving the goalposts? Any poor, overpopulated country is going to have low per-capita carbon emissions, true or false? They also have a lower quality of life and poor GDP. Not exactly a positive goal to shoot for.
      - dguaraglia 9y ago
        You started by saying China emits double the amount of greenhouse gasses the US does. Someone pointed out that it's still lower on a per-capita basis, so you switched tack to "oh, well, yeah, but... WHY DO POOR COUNTRIES GET A PASS!" That, my friend, is moving the goalposts. So you want the US, richest nation in the world, to be held to the same standards as developing countries. Even though, in our economy, pushing for green energy actually generates more jobs than trying to bring back polluting industries. What, exactly, is there to gain from that?

slededit 9y ago

You need to separate the details of the deal from the goal its attempting to achieve. The deal itself limits the US more than other countries which pollute more in absolute terms, and results in wealth transfers to those countries (directly). Given the relative wealth of the nation's involved I think the deal was fair. But that is a debatable point. The USA doesn't need this deal in place to limit its own emissions although its unlikely Trump would put much effort into it.

throwaway-1209 9y ago

Pros: the US was signing up for a _minimum_ of $100B/yr in foreign aid to help others implement the accords. When you're up to your ears in debt that's kind of stupid. Cons: estimates say that the climate will be warmer by 0.3 degrees Celsius by 2100. Assuming estimates are in fact right (which they historically haven't been) this could have devastating effects elsewhere in the world.

surveilmebro 9y ago
For anyone taking this comment seriously: verify the numbers for yourself. The poster has given the lower bound of the confidence interval in positing that we will see 0.3C warming by 2100. The latest assessment puts warming at 3.7C (6.67F!) under the "Business as Usual" RCP8.5 scenario. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_Pathways https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_Concentration_P... Edit -- not to mention that climate models are quite good at reproducing the observed changes: https://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-Models-Show-Remarkable-Agreement-with-Recent-Surface-Warming.html https://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-Models-Show-Remarka...
- throwaway-1209 9y ago
  That's if _everyone_ withdraws. That's not what's happening. 0.3 degrees is if the US withdraws but everyone else proceeds as planned. But we aren't even withdrawing per se. Immediately after announcing his decision, Trump also announced his willingness to re-negotiate the accords on better terms (by which I think he means not spending $100/B a year on something that other countries aren't even legally bound by). And climate models predict things just fine as long as you pick the ones that are somewhat accurate in retrospect. That's not what prediction is. Prediction is when, like Al Gore, you say that in 15 years we'll all be underwater, and it doesn't happen. If you bet your money on the accuracy of the current models you will lose.
  - surveilmebro 9y ago
    Complete nonsense on both counts. First of all, consider that the most visible public debate about this has centered on whether it is even possible to limit warming to 2C. Start by reading the two links I posted. If you would like to learn more, the IPCC reports are genuinely well written and accessible: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/ I would hope that at least on HN we could all agree on a shared objective reality and the validity of the scientific method. Your claims sound like something straight out of a Heartland brochure.

dguaraglia 9y ago

Pros: "it's the opposite of what Obama and Libruls wanted!". That's good enough for some of the Republican base, but that's about it. Most of the economic growth in the US has come from the clean energy industry and from improving current industries to be less polluting. Being able to burn coal and fuel 24/7 just "because we can" isn't going to make the country more productive. It's just a canard. Cons: - US losing leadership position on everything related to climate change - US opening itself to tariffs from other countries that are in the Paris agreement - US looking like a regressive regime that does stupid shit just to get headlines My guess is the third one will have the biggest impact.

microcolonel 9y ago

Here's a video which contains an argument that the accord is largely pointless, because China isn't just going to stick its head in the sand and go back to a pre-industrial economy tomorrow: https://youtu.be/QOFhpoDY0As https://youtu.be/QOFhpoDY0As James Hansen, a former NASA climate scientist, previously described the paris accord as "a fraud". He's describing this from the perspective of knowing it's not enough to do anything significant, and incredibly expensive. [0] [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/12/james-hansen-climate-change-paris-talks-fraud https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/12/james-ha...