WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has made a colossal mistake in deciding to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. There is simply no case for withdrawal, other than a desire to double down on an ill-informed campaign promise, while the case for staying in is overwhelming. But damaging as it is, this decision is not the beginning of the end for efforts to contain climate change. The world decided in Paris to confront the climate threat, and it is not turning back.
Around the world, climate change is a metastasizing danger, for some countries even an existential threat. It was understood in the years leading up to the Paris negotiation that the climate challenge could be met only with a new kind of agreement premised on concerted effort by all. That agreement — ambitious, universal, transparent, balanced — was reached in Paris, with the help of U.S. leadership every step of the way.
Trump’s decision will be seen as an ugly betrayal — self-centered, callous, hollow, cruel. The ravages of climate change have been on display in recent years in the superstorms, floods, rising sea levels, droughts, fires and killing heat waves that will only get worse as the carbon index mounts. Vulnerable countries will look at the United States, the richest power on Earth, the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, and think — even if they do not say — how dare you?
