Donald Trump is right to ditch the Paris Agreement

Yesterday’s announcement by Donald Trump that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement is truly historic. The Paris accord was the closest the Europeans had come to getting the US to accepting timetabled emissions cuts in the now quarter century saga of UN climate change talks. The first was in the 1992 UN climate change convention itself, rebuffed by George H.W. Bush; the second was in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, signed by the Clinton Administration, effectively vetoed by the Senate and repudiated by George W. Bush. Now, Donald Trump has dashed their hopes for a third and possibly final time. It’s understandable that the European reaction is one of fury and outrage. 

In fact, Trump offered the Europeans an olive branch in renegotiating Paris or negotiating a new agreement. But within minutes of the president’s announcement, the leaders of Germany, France and Italy slammed the door shut on that, stating their belief that the agreement ‘cannot be renegotiated’.