President Trump has been bombarded with reasons to keep the United States in the climate agreement the international community achieved two years ago in Paris. Everyone from the Pope to America’s leading CEOs have urged Trump to stay the course.
As he nears a decision, Trump also has been peppered with platitudes from predictable lobbies about how the Paris deal, as well as climate action in general, will bankrupt the economy and kill jobs. That is a false fear. Consider:
- Common sense tells us that climate change is far more likely to bankrupt the economy than climate action. The impacts of a disrupted climate will carry enormous costs for families, communities, businesses and governments. The costs will be reflected in everything from food prices families pay because of cropland drought or flooding, to higher premiums for homeowners’ insurance and higher taxes to cover rising government costs for disaster preparation, response and recovery.
- A successful international collaboration to cut carbon emissions is good for the U.S. economy. Economists at New York University have calculated that the current climate policies of other nations have benefited the U.S. economy by more than $200 billion. Future actions like those nations have pledged as a result of the Paris accord could save the United States more than $2 trillion by 2030 and more than $10 trillion by 2050, the economists report.
- Trump is trying to rescind the cornerstone of the United States’ commitment in the Paris deal, EPA’s Clean Power Plan to limit carbon pollution from power plants. But the Plan would likely lead to a net increase of 360,000 American jobs in 2020 – a gain that would…
