| Withdrawal from Paris Accords arouses plenty of discord |
Chuck Swann, Senior Editor
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 President Trump's announcement that he was pulling the USA out of the Paris Accords might have been pleasing to some of the conservatives in his base--but it certainly was displeasing to many business and government leaders. Some quick disagreement with the president's stance was noted in the news media--but not its full extent.
According to Climate Central, more than 1,200 corporations, academic and institutions and state and local governments have declared that they plan to stand behind the Paris climate agreement. Those planning to stick with the international pact include such business and tech industry heavyweights as Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon and Microsoft, plus populous states that are responsible for more than 17% of the nation's total carbon pollution. The businesses, states and cities represent more than a third of the US population. More than 200 US mayors announced that they plan to honor the US pledge and perhaps a dozen states have joined the newly formed US Climate Alliance, which is committed to honoring the accords.
"No single individual or group is leading the movement," said Rebecca Carriero of Bloomberg Philanthropies. It is an organic, bottom-up coalition of cities, states, businesses and universities that are standing together for the first time ever to announce that they will work together to maintain US leadership on climate change and clean energy."
Climate Central also reports that in addition to being and existential issue, climate change is about dollars and cents and Trump's decision could have major economic ramifications. Multinational corporations based in the US could face consume backlash overseas.
A number of observers see Trump's decision, in the first place, as a bone thrown to coal miners, and they also see no chance whatsoever of a revival of American coal mining in the face of cheap, plentiful and far less polluting oil and natural gas.
Chuck Swann is Senior Editor of Paperitalo Publications.
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