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Paris Climate Agreement Essay

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Why Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement Was a Poor Decision On June 1, 2017, from the White House Rose Garden, President Donald Trump announced that he will be withdrawing the US from the landmark Paris Climate Agreement. This could be a step back from the progress that was being made during the Obama administration. It was a very puzzling decision because the majority of Americans supported the agreement. Although some people think that the Paris Climate Agreement is not important, it was a poor decision to withdraw from the agreement because it has the potential to be a very important to Earth's future. The first issue of this poor decision is President Trump’s refusal to join the consensus that global warming is threatening …show more content…

So why should he care? The second issue behind the withdrawal was the economic implications. During the speech, he said that staying in the Paris Agreement would cost 2.7 million jobs by 2025. However, these numbers do not tell the whole story. The Paris agreement will cost jobs in traditional energy jobs such as coal and fracking but it will also increase jobs in the renewable energy field. The other major countries that are staying in the agreement are focusing on renewable energy while the US’ new president wants to go back to the past. The workers in the coal industry know that it is declining as cleaner forms of energy production are on the rise. President Trump wants a political win by saying he is creating jobs. That might be nice for the short term but could set us back in the long term. It would be comparable to a leader of the past trying to put more money into horseshoeing and carriage making while automobile production started advancing. “Analysis from a group led by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg estimates that by 2030, coastal storms and rising sea levels alone will have cost about $35 billion (Bump, 2017).” So investment in clean energy could hopefully reduce some of that cost by preventing more global warming. The third issue is that President Trump’s decision is not supported by a majority of the country. The

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