Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute highlights a little-publicized benefit of President Trump’s decision to exit the Paris climate agreement.
Some well-meaning people believe America should stay in the Agreement to help mitigate global climate change. But the treaty is at best all pain for no environmental gain. As environmental researcher Bjorn Lomborg points out, even if all Paris parties fulfill every promise contained in their NDCs by 2030, the total temperature reduction will be 0.048°C (0.086°F) by 2100. That change is less than the current margin of error (0.08°C) in estimates of annual average global temperature. The reduction in the policy-relevant future (the next quarter century) will be even more miniscule—too small to affect weather patterns, polar bear populations, or any climatic factor people actually care about.
“Yet U.S. GDP loss could be about $250 billion in 2025 increasing to about $420 billion per year on average and a cumulative loss of about $4 trillion between 2022 and 2031,” according to a study by NERA Economic Consulting. Such losses would mean hardship for millions of Americans, especially low-income households.
The biggest losers, though, would likely be the world’s poorest people. The Agreement’s mid-century emission reduction goal cannot be reached unless developing countries dramatically reduce their current consumption of affordable energy from fossil fuels.
Yet more than a billion people in those countries have no access to electricity and billions more have too little to support development. Forcing already energy-poor nations to go on an energy diet is a cure worse than the alleged disease and potentially a humanitarian disaster.
