The New York Times predicted that President Trump’s decision to exit the Paris climate agreement would lead to an environmental disaster in the future.
“Only future generations will be able to calculate the full consequences of President Trump”s incredibly shortsighted approach to climate change, since it is they who will suffer the rising seas and crippling droughts that scientists say are inevitable unless the world brings fossil fuel emissions to heel,” the Times wrote Thursday.
But while the Times called Trump’s exit “disgraceful,” it also acknowledged that the Paris deal only contains voluntary carbon-emission commitments that are not enforceable. Many conservatives have argued the deal is filled with unachievable, voluntary goals that can’t be enforced, and the Times admitted there is nothing to hold countries to those targets.
“In truth, the agreement does not require any country to do anything; after the failure of the 1997 Kyoto Accord, the United Nations, which oversees climate change negotiations, decided that it simply did not have the authority to force a legally binding agreement,” the Time said. “Instead, negotiators in Paris aimed for, and miraculously achieved, a voluntary agreement, under which more than 190 countries offered aspirational emissions targets…”
Still, the Times said Trump’s decision is tantamount to a climate disaster, because it signals the world that Trump has no interest in trying to take action on climate change.
“In huge neon letters, it sends a clear message that this president knows nothing or cares little about the science underlying the stark warnings of environmental disruption,” it said.
It will also prompt other countries to either leave the deal or “rethink their emissions pledges,” it said.
