Letter to the editor: Reader cheers Trump’s climate withdrawal

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To the editor:

President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord undoubtedly puts the interests of American workers first. From the beginning, the agreement clearly undermined U.S. competitiveness and jobs, extracted meaningless commitments from the world’s top polluters, accomplished little for the climate and basically funded a UN Climate Slush Fund underwritten by American taxpayers.

The Obama-negotiated deal threatened competitiveness and jobs in the U.S. According to a study by NERA Consulting, meeting the Obama administration’s requirements in the Paris Accord would cost the U.S. economy nearly $3 trillion over the next several decades.

By 2040, our economy would lose 6.5 million industrial sector jobs, including 3.1 million manufacturing sector jobs, and it would have effectively decapitated the coal industry, which now supplies about one-third of our electric power.

President Trump reiterated that the U.S. has enough energy reserves to lift millions of America’s poorest workers out of poverty, yet under this agreement, effectively putting these reserves under lock and key, taking away the great wealth of our nation and leaving millions of families trapped in poverty and joblessness.

The Paris Accord imposed unrealistic targets on the U.S. while giving other countries a free pass for years to come. For example, under the agreement, China could increase emissions for the next 13 years. And India made its participation contingent on receiving billions in foreign aid from developed countries.

As President Trump stated, “The agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States.”

The American taxpayers were forced to fund this poorly negotiated agreement by the Obama administration. President Obama committed $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund (30 percent of the original funding) without authorization from Congress. And with a $20 trillion national debt, the U.S. taxpayers should have never been expected to subsidize other countries’ energy needs.

As President Trump stated in his address, “It would once have been unthinkable that an international agreement could prevent the United States from conducting its own domestic economic affairs, but this is the new reality we face if we do not leave the agreement and negotiate a better deal.”

The poorly negotiated agreement also did little to protect the environment and our earth. According to researchers at MIT, if all member nations met their obligations, the impact on the climate would be poor. The impacts have been estimated to be likely to reduce a global temperature rise by less than 0.2 degrees Celsius by 2100.

Since the Paris Climate Accord frontloads costs onto the American people to the detriment of our economy and job growth, extracts meaningless commitments from the world’s top global emitters and accomplishes little for the climate in our world, I stand in agreement with President Trump, who remains committed to putting America first.

As he stated in his address, “As President, I have one obligation: and that obligation is to the American people. The Paris Accord would undermine our economy, hamstring our workers, weaken our sovereignty, impose unacceptable legal risks and put us at a permanent disadvantage to the other countries of the world. It is time to exit the Paris Accord and pursue a new deal that protects the environment, our companies, our citizens and our country.”

Christi Gibson
Waukee

10 COMMENTS

  1. Your letter is in complete opposition to all experts and is factually questionable. I stand in complete opposition to Trump on this and almost everything else he proposes!

      • Your reply and comment to Jill is exactly what one can expect to hear from someone who supports Trump. Like Trump you show a lack of understanding of the subject. Like Trump you use the vocabulary of a third grader. Like Trump you lash out and belittle those who disagree with you. Unlike Trump I know that climate change is real. Unlike Trump I am concerned about the future of my children and grandchildren because of climate change. Like me, and ALL the other countries of the world save Syria, you should be worried about the climate too. I would extend to you and all Trump supporters the invitation to move to Syria and join with your fellow disbelievers there who deny the dangers of climate change.

    • I’m with Jill, countries around the globe and scientists across the planet. Those wind turbines popping up all across Iowa aren’t building themselves or completed by unpaid volunteers. If the president’s stated obligation is to the American people, pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord is not remotely, in any way, moving him toward that obligation but instead achieving the exact opposite.

  2. You gave only one source (MIT) for your stated facts and figures. Most scientists would disagree with your generalizations. NASA, UCGS, Union of Concerned Scientist, etc. disagree with your statements. They say climate change is real and is caused by human activity — the increase of carbon dioxide gas from burning of fossil fuels, such as coal. Coal jobs are ending because of automation and the switching to other clean sources of energy. (Look up the quote of the coal miners union.) It is interesting to note that the new Coal Museum is completely powered by solar energy. China is now the world leader in solar energy cells. Mr. Trump is confused on this issue and/or has poor advisors. Are 195 other countries in the world wrong?

  3. Actually, it gives 15 million jobs to the Chinese to manufacture the technology we invented, and it actively works to eliminate the agricultural economy from Iowa by not addressing climate change. 350.org is a great place to go for the truth. Solar and wind are now cheaper than coal and will not harm but save jobs.

  4. The U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that federal regulations of all kinds account for less than 1 percent of American job loss. In fact, they report that environmental safeguards even create jobs. Mr. Trump probably did not read the report.

  5. For crying out loud, all you guys seem to miss the point. Who gives a hoot about jobs and American competitiveness when considering the impending ecological disaster and extinction of thousands of species including our own? Like Ray said, the prosperity our Orangutan in Chief promises is temporary at best and illusory at worst. For Heaven’s sake, my 9th grade science teacher taught us about greenhouse gasses and global warming back in 1970. By the way, Climate Change deniers and the phony scientists they quote remind me very much of the way smokers, the tobacco industry along with its phony scientists used to jump up and down swearing there was absolutely no proof cigarettes caused lung cancer and heart disease. It’s not as if I haven’t really seen this kind of insanity before.

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