Ever since the U.S pulled out I've seen so many people lose their minds and go into emotional breakdowns over this. People are acting like the entire planet is doomed because of this event. Let's be honest though, was the Paris Agreement really the key to our salvation?

-It was non-binding, there was no way to force countries to comply with requirements.
-The countries who care about the environment will continue their efforts with or without this agreement, and the countries who don't will continue polluting.

I fail to see how the Paris Agreement ever had anything beyond symbolic value. With no enforcement mechanism and the ability for signers to ignore terms at their pleasure, how did it really change anything?

For the record, I consider myself an environmentalist who cares deeply about stopping climate change. However, the Paris Agreement doesn't seem like it really does anything. Am I missing something here?

Despite what you just said, I would like to advise you to act like a human being.

Edited 6/4/2017 21:32:52

Well the thing about any treaty is that it is never really binding. If a country don't want to follow a treaty, it can certainly just ignore it. So in that regard nothing really different than a normal treaty, only difference is that it's specied it's not binding, probably to get more countries to sign it, but it wouldn't probably make a lot of difference if it was binding.

The thing about the Paris agreement, is that it just shows the targets we need to archieve in order to have a meaningful impact on the environnement, if the objectives are met, global warming should stabilize at arround 2°C, which would be a good thing.

As for countries deciding not to follow the agreement, it's really stupid of their part, there's more reasons to follow it than not, despite what Trump says about other countries cheating.

- For Europe, support for the environnement is very high, if governments don't do anything, people basically will get mad at them, it's easier to do something than to get bashed by more pro-climate candidates.
- For China and India, it's a major concern for their citizens health and patience as well, these countries have invested heavily and will keep doing so because people are tired from living in pollution bubbles.
- For other developping countries, they get money to fix their environnement, so it's good for them to follow the agreement, or they won't get money.
- Finally, for most countries, including America, following the Paris agreement is an economic issue. Clean energy sector is the fastest growing job market of the US, and clean energy is becomming cheaper and cheaper. In some countries it already beats the fossil fuel, and soon it will in the US too. Any country that turns its back to these new sources of energy, will fall behind in a strategic way, and won't get the gdp growth it creates.

I don't really thing at the end the Trump theatric thingy will make a lot of difference, the environnemental transition has been well engaged for a couple of years now. Economics, local government and citizen engagement will do a far better job now than the federal government could do even if Trump supported the energy transition.

Also the country need to stay in the accord for at least 4 more years, so Trump didn't do anything but degrade America's image in the international level for squat.

For the record, I consider myself an environmentalist who cares deeply about stopping climate change. However, the Paris Agreement doesn't seem like it really does anything. Am I missing something here?

Hello,

I don't know about other countries but in Germany environmentalism has become some sort of hipster religion. Standing on the right side of history by trying to save the environment has become one of the core values of the Germany elite and in some sense now of the whole German society. Just like in some parts of America the right to carry guns is more than just having a gun but about one of the core concepts of society, environmentalism is for the German elite one of the parts that define them.

Norman, how do you explain the scandal concerning Volkswagen then? Such hypocrisy! Volkswagen is from Germany, so don't pretend as if Germany is absolute pro-environmentalist!

Hello Joseph,

I don't believe that Volkswagen manipulating some emission data invalidates anything I wrote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5scez5dqtAc

@Norman, Really? did you have a straight face while typing that?

They did not 'manipulate some emission data'. They built in an emissions control work-around to cheat the system. The vehicles got a nominal boost in power and efficiency while have a emission 40x over the legal limits.

So each one of their cars polluted 40x the amount of a regular car.

Granted, these weren't greenhouse gases, but these gasses contribute heavily to smog, asthma related illnesses, heart disease, and the like.

"Standing on the right side of history by trying to save the environment has become one of the core values of the Germany elite and in some sense now of the whole German society."

You are willfully ignorant if you think that saving the environment is a core value of the Germany elite in light of one of Germany's largest companies illegally polluting and trying to hide it from the world on the scale that it did.

I don't agree with the great Billy Wallsh on each and every issue but since you are the only player who has managed to speedy boot, blacklist and insult me in a single game, I also don't feel like engaging in any discussion with you (https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=5361595).

Edited 6/5/2017 16:27:09

I found it so funny to read the chat on that game, from 4 years ago. xd

@norman, I'm glad we have another master-debator (sp?) back that would thinks they win arguments by spouting B.S. and sticking their head in the sand. Let me guess, you just won this discussion because you posted a link displaying to a game displaying you can't read a game?