Syria announces intent to join Paris Agreement on climate, leaving US solo dolo as the hold-out
The respect-the-American-president-because-he’s-the-American-president set is either miffed Donald Trump is internationally shunned or convincing themselves that the best parties are alone. As world leaders convened for earth-friendlier and business practicable solutions to the same global warming that affects global populations, Donald Trump is not currently invited to the Paris Climate Change Summit. This news accompanies Syria’s Tuesday announcement, at a United Nations meeting, that the nation would sign the Paris Agreement.
Where does Syria’s announcement leave America? At this point, every country but the US expressed support of the global environmental pact. While America remains technically part of the agreement through 2020, Trump announced a refusal to support the agreement.
Trump’s global diplomacy evinces the kind of my-way-or-the-highway reasoning of a leader invested in vanity metrics more than serving all Americans. His response to locals impacted by Hurricane Harvey was self-laudatory. “What a crowd! What a turnout!” This man declared that he met with U.S. Virgin Islands’ president, as if Caribbean constituents are no constituents at all, after facing extreme hurricanes.
So, it should come as no surprise that America’s global standing got hit with a two-piece. A few weeks ago, Nicaragua announced its intent to join the agreement. Vice President and first lady Rosario Murillo deemed the Paris accord, “the only instrument we have in the world that allows the unity of intentions and efforts to face up to climate change and natural disasters.”
“With Syria on board, now the entire world is resolutely committed to advancing climate action—all save one country,” Paula Caballero, a climate-policy specialist at the World Resources Institute, told The Atlantic. “This should make the Trump administration pause and reflect on their ill-advised announcement about withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.”
“Syria’s participation puts an exclamation point on the fact that the U.S. actions are contrary to the political actions, and the sincerely held beliefs, of every other country on the face of the Earth,” Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences at Princeton University and an experienced UN climate negotiations observer, told the Atlantic.