Trump V The World On Climate Change
The 2015 Paris Agreement between 195 countries represented an incredible step forward in international diplomacy after years of faltering climate negotiations.
In pulling the United States out of the Paris Agreement, President Donald Trump has taken a huge, stupid, selfish step backwards.
He’ll go down in history as a supervillain.
But Trump can’t halt the global march towards a cleaner, greener future – and other world leaders are stepping up to fill the leadership vacuum he’s created.
Trump’s move has been met by a flood of renewed support for climate action from civic and business leaders around the world.
In America, over a thousand:
- governors,
- mayors,
- businesses,
- investors, and
- universities
from across the country have declared their resolute intention to keep the US at the forefront of reducing carbon emissions.
The founder of Tesla, Elon Musk, has even resigned his position on Trump’s business advisory panel in protest. Then there is the Global Covenant of Mayors, which represents an incredible 700 million citizens around the world, and has committed to answer the call to action that the Paris Agreement signifies.
But the lofty geopolitics, global covenants and grand collaborations are only one dimension of addressing climate change.
When I founded Good Energy 18 years ago, my aim was to enable a simple, “grassroots” response to climate change. This has not changed: I still believe individuals, households, communities and businesses everywhere can and should be part of the solution. Many will be motivated by the logic and optimism of renewable energy, others by the simple desire to leave a better future for generations to come. For some it may now just be the chance to stick two fingers up at Trump and his cronies.
But whatever your reasons or belief, renewables – think:
- solar,
- wind and
- hydro
just make sense.
They are cleaner and safer than fossil fuel burning or nuclear technologies as there is none of the air quality impacts or leftover hazardous waste. (Would you rather picnic under a cooling tower or next to a solar farm?).
And they make financial sense. The cost of renewables is dropping all the time, meaning that pretty soon onshore wind will be the cheapest form of electricity generation. Solar is already cheaper than coal and nuclear.
Those committed to a cleaner, safer, fairer future are coming together in a global movement that has never been more powerful than it is today.
I’m thrilled that the Good Energy family – our customers, our investors, our shareholders, our staff, our generators, our partners – are at the heart of it.
