Poll: Few favor Donald Trump’s move to ditch Paris accord
Less than one-third of Americans support President Donald Trump‘s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, a new poll shows, and just 18 percent of respondents agree with his claim that pulling out of the international agreement to reduce carbon emissions will help the U.S. economy. The survey conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research earlier this month found that a slim majority – 52 percent – worry that withdrawing will actually hurt the economy. Twenty-seven percent think it won’t have an impact either way. But digging deeper into the numbers shows a sharp partisan divide on global warming, with Republicans more likely to align themselves with the president’s views. Seventy-eight percent of Democrats think withdrawing from the Paris agreement will hurt the national economy. Among Republicans, just 24 percent think it will hurt, 40 percent think it will have no impact and 34 percent think it will help. Donald Nolan is a New Jersey businessman who has spent years living and traveling overseas. He worries that Trump is undermining U.S. credibility abroad. An independent voter, Nolan said he strongly opposes pulling out of the Paris accord. “Where I live, we’re 36 feet above sea level. It the polar ice caps melt, there won’t be any dry land here,” said Nolan, 60. “If you are pulling out of something that pretty much every other country in the world is a part of, then that is not seen as being a leader. When I lived overseas, America was always looked at as being first. But I see our position to be deteriorating.” Overall, 44 percent of Americans are very concerned and 26 percent are moderately concerned that withdrawing from the agreement will hurt the country’s standing in the world, with that concern also dividing along party lines. By a 46 percent to 29 percent margin, more oppose than favor the U.S. withdrawing from the agreement. Democrats are far more likely to oppose than support withdrawing from the agreement, 69 percent to 16 percent. Republicans are more likely to support Trump’s withdrawal, 51 percent to 20 percent. Independents are mixed in their views. Twenty-five percent support the withdrawal, 36 percent are opposed and 37 percent don’t feel strongly one way or the other. Similarly, 43 percent say they’re very or extremely concerned that the U.S. withdrawing from the agreement will hurt global efforts to fight climate change, while 25 percent are moderately concerned. Seventy-two percent of Democrats, but just 13 percent of Republicans, are very concerned about the withdrawal hurting global efforts to fight climate change. Sixty-four percent of Americans disapprove and just 34 percent approve of how Trump is handling the issue of climate change, the poll shows. That’s similar to his overall approval rating, but there are other areas where Trump performs a bit better. For example, 43 percent approve of how he’s handling the economy and 47 percent approve of how he’s handling the threat of terrorism. The poll shows about two-thirds of Americans think that climate change is happening, while only about 1 in 10 think it’s not. The remaining quarter aren’t sure one way or another. Seven in 10 Americans – including some of those who aren’t sure whether climate change is actually happening – think it’s a problem that the U.S. government should be working to address. Among those who do think it’s a problem the government should address, more oppose than support withdrawing from the Paris agreement by a 60 percent to 21 percent margin. More than half of Americans -53 percent – say climate change is a very or extremely important issue to them. Women are more likely than men to call climate change an important issue, 59 percent to 47 percent. Bonnie Sumner, an independent voter who has lived in Colorado the last nine years, is among those who said doing something to combat climate change is important. She said her community in the Rocky Mountains is still dealing with the after effects of a devastating wildfire. “It’s definitely gotten hotter than it used to be,” said Sumner, 72. “I try to keep up with science, not people who have money to be made by not wanting things to change.” The poll shows that 35 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in the scientific community, 51 percent have some confidence, and 11 percent have hardly any confidence. But, again, there’s a big political divide: 53 percent of Democrats, but just 22 percent of Republicans and 19 percent of independents, say they have a great deal of confidence in scientists. Sumner said Trump is too quick to dismiss the evidence of global warming compiled by climate scientists. “His position, as it is with too many other things, is, ‘I know what’s best, I know better than everybody else, and this is a hoax, and this is fake news,’” she said. “I’m frightened for us, my children and my grandchildren. We only have one earth, we have to work together.” — The AP-NORC poll of 1,068 adults was conducted June 8-11 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Daniel Sutter: Forget Paris
President Donald Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord last week, setting off a firestorm of criticism. For instance, a New York Daily News headlined: “Trump to World: Drop Dead.” The withdrawal raises questions about global warming policies and their formulation. President Barack Obama and other world leaders signed the Paris Accord in December 2015. The U.S. and other developed nations promised greenhouse gas emissions cuts in the Accord. The Clean Power Plan, which significant restricts the use of coal, counts towards our promised efforts. Peoples’ responses to the withdrawal seem to depend largely on whether they believe that global warming will prove catastrophic. Warming due to greenhouse gases is not really in doubt; relevant questions involve how much warming will occur, the impacts of warming, and the viability of climate engineering to avoid or reverse warming. Despite the invective hurled at President Trump, the Paris Accord would have done very little to prevent catastrophic global warming. If every nation had delivered as promised (a big if), the Accord would have prevented about 0.2 degrees Celsius warming by 2100 according to leading climate models. The math of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is pretty clear: achieving the recommended targets will take a lot more than driving electric cars. Basically, we would need to stop using fossil fuels by mid-century, bringing almost unimaginable changes to our economy and lives. On the other hand, people who don’t see global warming as a dire threat look forward to Mr. Trump soon voiding the Clean Power Plan. Such a celebration might be premature. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) might be committed to the Plan despite the Paris exit. Why? In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. E.P.A. that the Clean Air Act provided legal authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, if the EPA determined that greenhouse gases endangered the environment. In 2009, President Obama’s EPA issued this endangerment finding. As Cato Institute’s Patrick Michaels argued at the recent 12th International Conference on Climate Change, the endangerment finding likely compels implementation of the Clean Power Plan. The process behind imposing these policies is, I think, highly troubling. A lawsuit by environmental groups and sympathetic state attorneys general yielded the 2007 Supreme Court decision. Regulatory actions by the EPA produced the endangerment finding and Clean Power Plan. And finally, we had an international agreement never ratified by the Senate. The process further relied on technicalities and a limitation of the Clean Air Act. The Act requires reduction of pollution to safe levels regardless of cost, and without considering whether we might more easily live with pollution. And yet adaption to a warmer climate is a potential response to global warming. The Clean Air Act gives the EPA authority to regulate “any air pollutant” endangering human well-being. Calling carbon dioxide, which is necessary for life, pollution stretches the plain meaning of the word. Limited government undertakes only those tasks citizens authorize. Meaningful limits require narrowly authorized tasks. Air pollution caused by cars and factories differs markedly from global warming. Action to address global warming should require explicit authorization by citizens. The cap-and-trade proposal of 2010 sought such approval, but failed in the Senate. The Paris Accord was never submitted to the Senate. Enacting the costliest environmental program ever contemplated without approval by our elected representatives is inconsistent with democracy and limited government. Global warming activists interpreted cap-and-trade’s failure as evidence of special interests choking the democratic process. Yet evidence weighs against this interpretation. A 2015 Gallup poll, for instance, found that only 32 percent of Americans worried a great deal about climate change, the same percentage as in 1989. If you doubt such polls, then ask if you or people you know would be willing to give up cars, airplanes, air conditioning and computers over global warming. Our system trusts that Americans have the intelligence and character to determine what is in our best interests. Many Americans are not willing to spend trillions of dollars combatting global warming. We may be wrong, but imposing incredibly costly policies against our wishes is un-American. ••• Daniel Sutter is the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University and host of Econversations on TrojanVision. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Troy University.
Mo Brooks defends Donald Trump’s withdrawal from Paris Climate Accord on House floor
Alabama 5th District U.S. Congressman Mo Brooks appeared on the House floor Wednesday to support President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. “President Trump is right, America must lead by putting America’s national interest first. The Paris Climate Accord did not do that,” said Brooks. “I am proud that President Trump puts America First. America should not and must not yield even a smidgeon of our national sovereignty to the dictates of other, lesser nations. Despite liberal, climate-scare and socialist Democrat hysteria to the contrary, America has been, and is, by almost every standard, the greatest nation in world history. With an ‘America First’ attitude, America will continue its 75 year streak as the greatest nation in the history of the world, second to none.” Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the agreement that former President Barack Obama signed last week, saying it has disadvantaged the United States all the while benefitting other countries, leaving American businesses and taxpayers to pay the tab. Brooks agreed with Trump’s assessment, calling the accord a “global redistribution of wealth scheme.” “Lest there be any doubt, the Paris Climate Accord intentionally hurt America to the benefit of competitor nations. In a global redistribution of the wealth scheme, the Paris Climate Accord called for America to give away tens of billions of dollars to other countries,” Brooks added. Watch Brooks’ floor speech below:
Will Lochamy: News, at the speed of Trump
If you don’t like the current headline, just wait five minutes. I’m sitting here at 7 p.m. trying to write a relevant piece for publication at noon tomorrow. The problem is I don’t know what is going to be relevant in seventeen minutes, let alone seventeen hours. I woke up one morning swimming in jokes about people needing their morning cup of covfefe. He fell asleep mid-tweet while trying to type the word “coverage,” right? It’s no big deal. But wait… Sean Spicer says it was deliberate and the president and a small group of people know what he meant. What in the what!? Who is the small group? Is it Boris and Natasha? This is a huge deal! (Or would be in anything other than the Trump news cycle.) So I should write about covfefe, right? But to be relevant by tomorrow, I would literally have to invent a new word, expect the leader of the free world to tweet it while falling asleep, then have his team make up an excuse that raises way more questions than it answers. By the time you read this, covfefe will regrettably be old news. Maybe I should write about Kathy Griffin. It only took a few hours of daylight to be reminded that she isn’t funny. She’s apparently as mindless as she is hard on the ears. Hiring her was the second worst decision CNN has made next to having panels made up of fourteen people. We SHOULD be having a debate about free speech and how you can say insanely vile and disgusting things, right? Not happening. Instead, I’ve got to guess who will have their feelings hurt tomorrow. We are pulling out of the Paris climate accord. It’s the most nonsensical move since making up a story about covfefe being some codeword. Maybe I should write about that. The future is here, people. We have self driving cars, (fake) hoverboards, and my grandmother has figured out how to text me at 5:30 a.m. Meanwhile, rather than embracing our newfound renewable energy, we’re going to reinvest in a 2nd century technology. Yeah, that’ll show em’ who’s boss. Any other time and it would be the story of the year, yet I can’t even decide if it was the story of the day. So here we are, people of the future… although it feels like President Trump wants us to be the people of the past. If I had to guess (and I do), I’d bet that by the time you read this we will have all washed down our bacon, egg, and cheeflablah biscuit with some covfefe, opened our eyes to the fact that Gilbert Gottfried is obnoxious, and hopped in our horse-drawn carriages to fetch some asbestos-flavored lead paint to snack on. Oh, and the coral reefs are dying. ••• Will Lochamy is co-host of the radio show, “Oh Brother Radio” on Birmingham Mountain Radio (107.3FM).
China likely to gain as US withdraws from Paris agreement
President Donald Trump‘s pullback from a global climate pact could accelerate China’s unlikely ascent toward leadership in stemming global warming and promoting green technology, and on global matters far removed from the environment. Trump’s announcement that the U.S. would leave the Paris accord immediately sparked international criticism, deepening perceptions of an America in retreat after recent reversals on free trade and foreign aid. China may be poised to fill the breach. The world’s largest emitter of man-made carbon dioxide, considered a top cause of climate change, is already making rapid progress toward its Paris goal of stopping emissions growth by 2030. It has overtaken the U.S. in transitioning to renewable energy, generating a fifth of its electricity from renewable sources. The U.S. only sources about 13 percent of its electricity from renewables. And although China remains heavily reliant on coal and pollution is a persistent problem for its 1.3 billion citizens, the country’s communist rulers say they’re determined to institute fundamental change. That commitment has much of the world now looking to Beijing, which wants to assert itself on the global stage. “They were doing this before Trump was elected,” said Carolyn Bartholomew, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission chairwoman. Criticizing Trump in a personal capacity, and not on behalf of the bipartisan panel that advises Congress, she added: “He’s just making it easier for them by pulling the U.S. back from the position of global responsibility.” China was positioning itself even before Trump officially declared his intentions in Thursday’s Rose Garden speech. It said this week it would work with the European Union to uphold the agreement, whatever Washington decided, with Premier Li Keqiang and EU officials set to discuss the matter Friday in Brussels. Even potential U.S. partners reached out across the Pacific. Gov. Jerry Brown of California, America’s largest state economy, said he’ll travel to China this week to build foreign support for carbon-cutting efforts. Such alliances “build momentum for a clean-energy future,” Brown told The Associated Press in an interview. China’s emergence as a new, alternative unifying force is hardly limited to environment. As the Trump administration has stepped back from America’s traditional role of dominance on trade and development, China has filled the vacuum, expanding its ever-growing footprint across the globe on everything from new roads and ports to bank loans and energy projects. To Washington’s chagrin, China last year set up its own development bank to meet needs left unfilled by U.S.-led institutions like the World Bank. Last month, President Xi Jinping hosted more than 20 world leaders for a show case of its economic initiative to build infrastructure linking Asia and Europe. Earlier this year, Xi made a high-profile speech in Davos, Switzerland, embracing at least the idea of an economic globalization that Western leaders like Trump are increasingly fleeing. By contrast, Trump has pulled the United States out of President Barack Obama‘s ambitious Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that would have spanned a dozen nations from the U.S. to Chile to Japan. China wouldn’t have been privy to the deal. Trump also is proposing sharp cuts to U.S. budgets for humanitarian and development assistance for the world’s poorer nations. On climate, Beijing is taking action. It recently canceled construction of more than 100 new coal-fired power plants and plans to invest at least $360 billion in green-energy projects by the end of the decade. Its consumption of coal fell in 2016 for a third consecutive year. It could meet its 2030 target a decade early. China’s willingness is largely driven by domestic imperatives: growing popular dismay about air pollution, deteriorating water quality, and soil contamination from runaway industrialization. China still accounts for about half of global coal consumption. Obama’s effort to engage China’s Xi on climate issues helped spur the change. A pre-Paris agreement between the two nations – the world’s two largest emitters – galvanized international action that culminated in the final deal endorsed by nearly 200 governments. By withdrawing, Trump puts the U.S. with Nicaragua and Syria as the only nations outside the accord. After three decades of rapid economic growth, China is assuming a mantle of leadership in the Asia-Pacific and beyond. That speaks not just to its leaders’ desire to modernize the nation, but also for global recognition and a re-emergence from the “humiliations” suffered during colonial rule and war during the 19th and 20th centuries. The re-emergence, however, has spooked neighbors as China wields growing economic and military clout. It also has fueled concerns of strategic rivalry with the United States that could end up in conflict. Still, countries in Asia and beyond also are seizing opportunities of doing ever bigger business with China’s growing economy, destined to become the world’s largest. China is finding willing partners not just in the developing world, but also in the West. And with economic cooperation comes greater influence. China is just getting started on the massive environmental work needed in the next decades. While it tops the world in the amount of energy it sources from solar and wind, its economy remains reliant on energy-intensive, intensely polluting industry. It is “both a leader and a laggard” in addressing climate change, said Sarah Ladislaw, an energy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The shift to renewables is making them more affordable, even if China’s technology lags that of cutting-edge America and Europe. And while China’s commitment keeps the Paris deal alive, it could struggle without U.S. support to persuade the rest of the world to live up to its promises. Of China, Ladislaw said: “I just don’t know how they can single-handedly show enough leadership to do that.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
