Donald Trump’s historic mistake

President Donald Trump has announced that the US will no longer participate in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the landmark UN treaty that many of us worked so hard to achieve. He is making a mistake that will have grave repercussions for his country and for the world.

Trump claims he will try to renegotiate the deal or craft a new one. But leaders worldwide have already hailed it as a breakthrough for the fight against climate change, a victory for international cooperation and a boon to the global economy. That remains true.

Among the many challenges we face today, climate change is unique in its global scale. It affects every element of life on this planet, from ecosystems and food production to cities and industrial supply chains. Viewing climate change as strictly an environmental problem misses the point entirely.

We might charitably assume that Trump simply does not understand the implications of his decision. Yet regardless of what he thinks, we know he is surrounded by advisers who know very well what is at stake.

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to create jobs and protect American workers from the ravages of the world. He signed off his tweet announcing he had made a decision on the Paris accord with the words: “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” But Trump’s decision undermines every one of these goals, and goes against the wishes of the vast majority of Americans, including many of his own supporters.

By turning his back on the Paris agreement, he is increasing Americans’ exposure to the devastating effects of climate change, many of which they are already experiencing. Moreover, he is undercutting jobs in the thriving renewable-energy and electric-vehicle sectors, which are increasingly employing the very workers he purports to represent.

More broadly, Trump has diminished the US itself and abdicated its global leadership role. When I was a member of the French government participating in a global tour to build consensus for climate action — an effort that eventually culminated in the Paris agreement — I experienced first-hand what American leadership can achieve. It is tragic to watch that force for good be subverted by denial and myopia.

By burying their heads in the sand, Trump and his advisers must be hoping that reality will simply go away. They have somehow concluded that the US will be spared from the droughts already destroying farms in California’s Central Valley, the rising sea levels already flooding coastal cities, the storms and wildfires routinely ravaging vast swathes of the American countryside, and the water- and food-supply disruptions that threaten us all.

Other parties to the Paris deal have responded to Trump’s decision with strength, proving the resilience of the agreement. The rest of the world will be sad to see a US that has been left behind due to his decision, but we will not wait; in fact, we are already moving on.

The world’s response will be clear at the G-20 meeting in Germany in July. Already Europe, China, India, Canada and Pacific Rim and South American countries have recommitted to the goals of the Paris agreement. These countries understand the dangers of climate change, as do ExxonMobil’s global shareholders, who just this week rejected the company’s attempts to ignore the impact of climate change on its business.

By placing America in the company of the only two countries that have not joined the Paris agreement — Syria and Nicaragua — Trump’s decision is completely at odds with the current global atmosphere of cooperation.

The world’s major economies are reaching new deals every day to collaborate on research and development, infrastructure investment and industrial strategy. They are working together to achieve a low-carbon economy and make 2020 the year that global greenhouse-gas emissions will have peaked.

European leaders are already meeting with their Indian and Chinese counterparts to find areas where they can cooperate on developing clean energy and green infrastructure. Massive investments will be made in these areas, and the European Central Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and many other institutions are devising mechanisms to finance them. Likewise, sovereign wealth funds with immense clout in the global financial system are redirecting their investments toward the green economy.

Even the most optimistic among us did not predict that the old fossil-fuel paradigm would change so quickly. But Europe is phasing out coal-fueled energy production, and India, China and South Korea are rapidly shifting their investments away from coal toward renewable-energy sources.

Worldwide, the competition is about who can go green the fastest. New industries are springing up, at scale, in areas ranging from electrification and smart-grid design to electric vehicles, green construction, recycling technologies and organic chemicals.

The renewable-energy revolution, now spreading at an unprecedented rate, is already transforming entire sectors, not least transportation. In all these sectors worldwide, the excitement and growth potential is palpable.

It is a shame that Trump has decided to shirk America’s global responsibility and turn his back on these developments. His decision is a blow to so many people — including a great many Americans — who have worked hard to be a successful part of the new economy.

Still, Trump cannot take all of the US with him. State- and city-level climate action is sweeping the country, increasing in scale and ambition. His historic mistake represents an obstacle to that collective action, but it can hardly stop it. Just as Chinese companies are now training US coal workers to build wind farms, the rest of the world will continue to work together and build the markets and workforce of the future.

• Laurence Tubiana, former French ambassador to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, is CEO of the European Climate Foundation and a professor at Sciences-Po, Paris.

 ©Project Syndicate