An avalanche of pullouts from the Paris Climate Agreement?
The screeching brouhaha over President Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement could, at first glance, be called a global episode of Trump Derangement Syndrome. But with the intensity of the rage, it seems to be more than that. Former United Nations has-been and ex-president of Ireland Mary Robinson called the U.S. a "rogue state." France's President Emmanuel Macron offered "refuge" to America's climate scientists, as if these people were actually in danger of losing tenure or maybe a grant, not to mention an imaginary knock on the door at midnight. Former Obama "mind meld" Ben Rhodes calls it "moral wreckage," adding: "The rest of the world will watch in horror." Billionaire greenie Tom Steyer calls Trump's act "a traitorous act of war."
We know they've gone off the deep end.
Obama's legacy is at stake, for one. The concept of Euro-centric one-world governance is on the line, too. The promise of enforced socialism through greenie virtue-signaling has got to be smarting as well.
But I sense that the howls coming out may be premised on the fear of a mass pullout from the Paris Climate Accord now that President Trump has kicked the first brick out of the wall. The U.S. pullout may make the whole structure come tumbling down, and take with it Europe's claimed right to act as the world's global governing body.
It's probably painful, given that President Trump has upbraided them on their deadbeat defense contributions to NATO, and the European Union itself has suffered a blow to prestige because so few of its members bother to observe their monetary quotas.
There are already signs it's happening. Japan has declined to sign on to a group statement condemning President Trump, perhaps figuring that securing its own security against the monsters threatening it from North Korea might be more important than joining Europe's middle finger to President Trump.
A Japanese government official says Japan has decided not to join Germany, France and Italy in expressing regret over the decision by President Donald Trump's to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord.
The official, who declined to be identified by name or affiliation and requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the decision, said that Japan chose to issue its own statement, not as part of the group. He declined to give a reason or confirm if any of the three countries had invited Japan to sign a joint statement.
Other satraps and officials keep letting the cat out of the bag by expressing fears (or false confidence) that other nations won't follow the lead of the U.S. and pull out as well. There's a "whistling past the graveyard" feel to many of these statements:
Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas said in an interview with The Associated Press that the Paris accord "was, and still is a very important goal to achieve."
He stressed all EU nations are sticking together to make the deal work and expressed his doubts that any country around the world would follow Trump's lead. "I hope that the number is zero," Ratas said.
Others are ful of suspicious protestations:
In their statement released Friday, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan calls climate change "the great existentialist threat of our time" and that the U.S. withdrawal weakens the Paris accord.
However, he said it does not "trigger its demise."
These denials suggest that there is a fear that the U.S.'s withdrawal from the agreement will trigger an avalanche of exits. After all, no one wants to be bossed around by petty Eurocrats with no serious claim to rule anyone.
Meanwhile, this comes against a backdrop of ongoing climate skepticism. Officials from the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Australia, and the oil-rich Arab states have openly questioned global warming in the past. While any pullout depends on who gets elected to office, the reality is there that many officials want nothing to do with this economy-killing pact. As for China and India, sure, they want the pact – so long as they never have to produce any results.
This portends weak global support for the Paris Accord – and there may be other pullouts.
So, far from "not leading" on the world stage as President Obama bitterly claimed, President Trump is leading the world globally – out of the hands of it petty, unelected bureaucracies.