LEAVING THE PARIS AGREEMENT

For those who maybe don't know, the Paris agreement concerns nearly 200 countries signing on to try to lower the increase in temperature to 2 degrees Celcius.*  This is a great pity as the agreement is voluntary so if you don't like it or feel you cannot attain the goals, you can just change your goals.  Actually I think President Trump's opposition to the agreement has nothing to do with global warming but everything to do with the agreement being lead by President Obama coupled with having a foreign name for it (Paris).  I'm not alone in such a conclusion, conservative David Brooks said much the same thing.

In fact it is not hard to find non-elected conservatives that grant global warming and bemoan leaving the agreement.  One example is the conservative David Brooks.  Small government loving "Morning  Joe" Scarborough is another one.

For some reason, we Americans, or at least the group that counts, do not like global agreements.  America's not ratifying the League of Nations certainly didn't help it, and many Republicans would abandon the United Nations if they could.  So to have Republicans oppose a global climate agreement is no surprise.  If Trump didn't withdraw, someone like Mike Pence would have or any other Republican likely to become president.

A peculiar thing is that the U.S. is almost half way to its goal of reducing carbon emissions to 25-26% of 2005 values.**

(Click on figure to enlarge)

There is also a Wall Street Journal article saying that the drop in carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. will continue to drop, in spite of President Trump's efforts to revive polluting industries like the coal industry.  Many states have emissions controls in effect, including Texas (see figure).**

(Click on figure to enlarge. Note the vertical axis and horizontal axis are latitude and longitude)

There was a Wall Street Journal editorial that seemed to say that we Americans should just try to have an economy vibrant enough so American's could adjust to whatever happens and to heck with carbon dioxide emissions:**

The best form of climate-change insurance is a large and growing economy so that future generations can afford to adapt to whatever they may confront.***

A more prosperous society a century or more from now is a more important goal than asking the world to accept a lower standard of living today in exchange for symbolic benefits.
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Energy intensity—the amount of energy necessary to create a dollar of GDP—has plunged 58% in the U.S. since 1990, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Over the same period, intensity declined merely 37% in OECD Europe, 20% in Japan, 22% in Mexico and 7% in Korea. China dropped by 133%, but working off a far more wasteful initial base. Superior efficiency helps explain why U.S. carbon emissions fell by 145 million tons in 2016 compared to 2015, more than any other country. Russia was second, at minus 64 million tons. Over the past five years U.S. emissions have fallen by 270 million tons, while China—the No. 1 CO 2 emitter—added 1.1 billion tons.*** 


Well, ahem, this improvement in energy intensity has happened with a lot of government stimulation, such as on both wind power and solar energy  Oh, well, you will see.  I'll be long gone.   Infact all the important technological advances have been stimulated by government action, such as, GPS and the internet.  Companies are good at step by step improvement in technology, not developing new technology.  The hybrid automobile that came from Japan, may be an exception but the sale of them carried a tax advantage for the buyer.

In the meantime, China continues to lower its carbon dioxide output.
China said its CO2 emissions in 2017 will drop 1 percent from 2016, making it the fourth consecutive year of either zero growth or a decline in the country's emissions.****

* http://www.mymcmurray.com/2017/06/06/california-china-sign-climate-deal-after-trumps-paris-exit/
** http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/01/us-carbon-emission-controls-are-taking-hold-no-matter-what-trump-does.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/despite-trump-move-utilities-shift-from-coal-is-set-to-continue-1490693406
*** https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-bids-paris-adieu-1496358860
**** https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28022017/chinas-co2-reduction-clean-energy-trump-us