Ujas Shah
B.A. (Hons.) International Relations,
Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University.
The Paris agreement has been one of the most important agreements in recent times. Trump’s pulling out of it will adversely affect the 194 countries still committed to the accord. But, it seems, it may not be all that bad.
The image that the US will now become one ‘big chimney’ is far from the truth. Even after the withdrawal, there are a lot of entities inside it that believe that climate change is real and are willing to work hard to fight it, examples can be found all around. As soon as Trump announced the withdrawal, Silicon Valley CEOs came out strongly against the decision, vowing to fight climate change and use renewable sources of energy. Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Tim Cook and many others came forward in support of clean energy. Companies such as Facebook are committed to power every new data centre with renewable energy. Research and development will also not be affected as much because corporations in the US, like Solar City and Tesla, have already invested billions in renewables. They also won’t be ready to miss out on the $1.4 trillion low carbon emission market. Furthermore, mayors of many cities in the US feel the same. New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, Washington D.C. and Pittsburgh and 242 others have committed to wind and solar energy and to achieve the Paris agreement goals. Many governors and members of congress, including some Republicans are against Trump pulling out of the Paris accord. Hence, there is much resistance inside the country to the withdrawal and Trump still has a long fight to implement his policies.
To sum up, US’s withdrawal from the Paris accord will not so easily lead to drastic changes in its domestic environment.
Decoding South Asia 