President Trump has followed through on his campaign promise to retreat from the Paris Agreement. Now, the United States has joined Nicaragua and Syria as one of only three countries in the world to stand apart from the historic global pact, signed just last year.
"We're getting out, but we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that's fair, and if we can that's good, and if we can't that's fine," the President said in an announcement at the White House Thursday afternoon. "The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries."
It’s a dark day for Mother Earth. Only China exceeds the United States in carbon emissions. Without the United States, the rest of the world will have a much tougher time meeting the Paris Agreement’s stated goal of preventing global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Back home, pulling out of the agreement removes incentives for the United States to crack down on emissions and, among other things, enforce tighter emissions standards in the automobile and coal industries. But while President Trump’s decision is alarming to climate advocates—and, you know, anyone who likes to breathe clean air and live above sea level—it would be hard to completely derail the country’s drive toward curbing emissions. The private sector is already deeply invested.
From Facebook to Wal-Mart and now even Exxon (until recently helmed by Trump's Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson), businesses increasingly view sustainability as critical to their bottom lines. "I don’t think this is going to diminish by one iota the commitment by the private sector in the US to do what makes sense from a business standpoint and from an environmental standpoint," says John Holdren, President Obama's former senior advisor on science and technology.
The tech industry has naturally been out front on this issue. Facebook’s data centers, those energy-gulping engines of the knowledge economy, are now powered by 100 percent clean and renewable wind energy. The company aims to power all of its operations with at least 50 percent clean and renewable energy by next year. Facebook also negotiates renewable energy tariffs on behalf of itself and other businesses and has open sourced its data center designs for other tech companies to build atop. Meanwhile, Google expects to run its entire global operation, including data centers, on 100 percent renewable energy this year. The new Apple Park is already running on 100 percent renewable energy. Last year alone, Apple reduced its carbon emissions by nearly 585,000 metric tons.
And while President Trump framed this decision as an effort to protect American workers, Jeff Immelt, chairman and CEO of General Electric, one of the top employers in the country, was among the loudest voices advocating to stay in.
“As a company we think that climate change is real," Immelt recently told students at Georgetown University adding that the withdrawal is "not going to change one thing that we do regarding energy efficiency...and I think all business is going to feel the same way.”
But the private sector's commitment to sustainability extends far beyond tech. In April, Walmart announced its plan to remove one gigaton of emissions from its supply chain by 2030, the equivalent of taking 211 million cars off the road for a year. And just this week, Exxon shareholders overwhelmingly voted in favor of the company sharing more transparent information about the impact of climate change on its business.
"The irony of all the president’s posturing is that on the economics of this issue, the train has already left the station," says Brian Deese, a former senior advisor to President Obama and current senior fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School.
Energy is a cost just like any other for these conglomerates. Now that the price of renewable energy sources like wind is drastically declining, the leap to cleaner energy is above all a simple cost-saving strategy for businesses. That's to say nothing of the good PR that comes with adopting sustainable practices. "The incentives to act are going up, just as renewables are getting cheaper," Holdren says. "By reducing their carbon emissions, businesses are saving money, they're building their brands, and they're attracting consumers that want to buy from businesses that are acting in the most sustainable way."
It helps that some of the country's most forward-looking businesses when it comes to climate action are based in California and New York, which make up some of the largest economies in the world. Governors and local leaders in both states have committed to double down on sustainability goals with or without the White House's support and may be inclined to provide even more financial incentives to businesses that help them reach those goals. "I am optimistic you'll see more action, not less, out of cities, states, and businesses," Deese says.
Still, while both Deese and Holdren say progress will continue, they concede it will do so at a much slower pace. Particularly troubling is the impact this administration's retreat from climate action could have on investments in basic energy research. President Trump's initial drastic budget cuts threatened to eliminate the ARPA-E program, which invests in advanced energy research, including batteries and biofuels. There are, of course, ongoing efforts in the private sector to fund that research. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft founder Bill Gates co-founded the Breakthrough Energy Initiative in 2015 to invest in technology that addresses climate change. And Tesla's Elon Musk is in the midst of building his electric vehicle and battery empire. There are ample indications corporate investments in this space are growing, but none of them can yet compete with the might of the federal government, which currently funds roughly half of all basic research.
Following the President's address, Musk announced he is leaving the White House's advisory councils, despite previously defending his decision to work with the White House.
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In a direct Twitter message to WIRED, Musk said that even without the government's help, "we will do everything we can to build great electric cars, batteries and solar. Unfortunately, it will be against massive political headwinds on a very uneven playing field."
This global agreement gives governments around the world a chance to stand up for the businesses in their own backyards and know that their fellow signatories will listen. "The risk is that the world will move forward in a way that doesn't reflect US corporate interests," Deese says.
The United States, in other words, has just walked away from the bargaining table where the framework for the future will be created.
