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Trump's Paris move neglects our future

Last week, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Accord, the “world’s first comprehensive climate agreement.”

The U.S. exit from the 2015 Paris deal, which was signed in April of 2016 under the Obama administration, was a major win for Trump and for conservatives and climate change deniers, who have called climate change a “hoax” and a part of a political agenda to (for some reason) kill coal and oil jobs.

This decision comes despite the fact that his daughter Ivanka, tech companies like Tesla and even a few oil giants like Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips urged Trump to keep the U.S. loyal to the agreement.

China and the European Union, who are the No. 1 and No. 3 carbon emitters, respectively, just recently reaffirmed their commitment to the deal, but that did not stop the Trump administration from backing out, either.

Trump did say he would attempt to renegotiate a Paris deal that will, in his opinion, be better for American workers.

"We will start to negotiate,” he said, “and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great.”

But considering his past attitude towards climate change and his rhetoric towards former president Barack Obama, it does not seem likely that Trump would ever re-enter an agreement that quickly became a staple of his predecessor’s legacy.

For those who believe the Paris Accord is necessary to stop the threats against our planet, there are a few silver linings.

One is that Trump has agreed to follow the exit procedure guide lined in the agreement. It is a process that will take four more years to complete. That will automatically make the Paris Accord and the decision to leave it behind either a point to highlight for the Republicans in 2020, or a point to pivot away from. [I’m leaning towards the latter.]

Another is the fact that no matter what Trump does, and no matter the promises he makes, he ultimately cannot save the dying coal industry. He can only prolong it. And while the coal that dirties our atmosphere dies, clean energy renewables like solar and wind continue to flourish.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the American coal industry has been in a steady decline since 1986, losing approximately 100,000 jobs. Since that time, renewable sources of energy like solar have overtaken coal.

As of 2015, there were approximately 260,000 solar jobs in the United States, which is nearly quadruple the number of coal jobs. Simply put, renewables are the future, not coal.

And while renewables, specifically solar, still haven’t caught up to oil in terms of usage, the cost of production of oil is higher, making renewables a cheaper alternative to the erratic oil market.

Whatever Trump and the Republicans’ reasons for turning their backs on planet Earth, whether it’s greed or ignorance or just another political score to get re-elected, it’s clear now that Americans can’t rely on current elected officials to protect future generations.

While our president and other Republican leaders continue to neglect the future and alienate the United States from the rest of the world, the Earth will continue to get hotter. Ice caps will melt, hurricanes will grow stronger, wildfires will become more frequent and millions of lives will be lost all the while.

But despite my distrust in our own government, I believe there is still some hope if countries like China and India stay faithful, the Paris Accord can accomplish its goal.

The United States emits 15 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide, which leaves the other 147 parties and 85 percent to do what the United States does not have the courage to do: Save our planet.

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