The Paris Agreement brings trillions in new investment and provides President Trump with his best opportunity to build a new American economy of durable prosperity. In his Inaugural Address, Trump pledged that the forgotten will no longer be forgotten.
Resource curse: Withdrawing from the Paris Agreement will do nothing to create jobs or raise incomes in coal country. For coal communities, removing global leverage to push investment into a new economy will mean:
- New investment for new business models will slow down or stop.
- Boom-and-bust cycle will accelerate as coal fails to compete with natural gas, leaving communities languishing without jobs.
- Pollution and health costs will both rise dramatically in vulnerable communities.
Mobilizing capital: The old industrial economy has failed to mobilize tens of trillions of dollars in capital:
- $8.6 trillion tied up in negative yield bonds.
- $5 trillion in corporate cash holdings.
- $5 trillion per year in taxpayer-funded global support to high-polluting energy systems that return too little long-term value.
The Paris Agreement is designed very carefully to mobilize all of this untapped capital investment to ensure stronger national economies.
Leverage for leaders: The Supreme Court has already ruled that the administration must act to avoid climate disruption.
- The Paris Agreement, for the first time, brings all nations into this effort.
- It specifically requires that climate action be “respectful of national sovereignty, and avoid placing an undue burden on Parties”.
- Congress and the administration have strong conservative policy options they can use to ensure strong US leadership.
Put simply: The Paris Agreement is leverage for President Trump to succeed in building the new American infrastructure he has promised.
Geoversiv Earth Intelligence 