We'll Never Have Paris

With Trump set to return to the White House two weeks from Monday,  the United States will likely be out of the Paris Agreement again two weeks from Tuesday.  And this time, to quote former future President Kamala Harris, we're not going back.

A few years ago, President Biden's then-climate envoy John Kerry said that Biden's successor - likely assuming at the time that it wouldn't be Biden's predecessor - would not be able to pull the U.S. out of the climate agreement because it would be bad for American business.  There's money to be made in alternative energy sources and in green-energy-generated electricity, Kerry said, and not even a die-hard Trumpist would want to get in the way of profits for companies dedicated to these new business opportunities, especially when the Chinese are hoping to dominate the green-energy field. 

Anyone who thinks that any of that is going to satisfy Trump must also think that Steve Bannon - who also hates the Paris Agreement - is going to take a bath.  Trump has already received a ton of cash from the fossil-fuel industry, and companies that invest in green energy might very well be asking from trouble with an administration that sees them as a threat to to Big Oil's and Big Coal's hegemony over the energy sector.   Besides, I'm certain that companies investing in electric-vehicle chargers and solar panels have investments in other sectors to fall back on, and they wouldn't want to see those ventures get threatened, would they?

I want to make it clear that my take on why Trump would want to quit the Paris Agreement again is based mostly on conjecture and speculation.  But given Trump's - and the conservative movement's - historically cozy relationships with the fossil-fuel industry, it does make a ton of sense. 

I suppose it's possible that we stay in the climate accord nominally, at least to save face internationally, if only to avoid the appearance of going back and forth on it, which is what I imagine incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio would tell Trump.  But Rex Tillerson made the argument to Trump that it was important to stay in and abide by the Paris Agreement when he was Secretary of State, and he was an oilman - and we know how that turned out.  Also, I'd cite all of the other international agreements the United States has deliberately refused to be party to on the basis of preserving "national sovereignty," but I don't have enough bandwidth for that.

And don't expect Elon Musk (above) to make the case for the Paris accord, either, even though he's Trump's biggest benefactor and best buddy.  He's too busy trying to convince Trump to cancel tax credits for electric-vehicle purchases.  Now why would the owner of the world's largest EV maker advocate for that?

There are quite a few reasons, actually.  The most obvious reason is the plethora of EV startups such as Lucid and Rivian, that are just as scrappy and hungry as Tesla once was and benefit from such tax breaks.  Musk doesn't want the competition.  Also, there's Tesla's long-accrued brand equity.  Tesla has such a strong reputation with a growing sense of history and heritage that people would still buy a Tesla even without the tax credit.  Also, Lucid and Rivian don't have as big an amount of cash reserves to get through periodic slumps in the auto market.  As the world's richest man by a wide margin, Musk can lose tons of money on every vehicle he produces and still have gobs of dough left over.

I was going to say that Musk wants to have EV tax credits discontinued to discourage EV offerings from legacy automakers like Ford and Volkswagen, but that's hardly an issue.  EV sales tanked in 2024 across the board, and Ford even halted production of its F-150 Lightning (above), with the big pickup failing to change the image of EVs as being for latte liberals who live in Montclair, New Jersey or Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Meanwhile, Fisker went bankrupt, and the Vietnamese EV company VinFast has delayed the opening of its North Carolina factory until 2028.  Tesla also saw its sales fall in 2024, but remember, this would hardly affect Elon Musk's bottom line.  (One exception to the EV sales slide is Hyundai's Ioniq cars, which, like Teslas, are cars people actually want.   Hyundai likely hopes that consumers will still want them without the tax credit. And as a brand with a 39-year history in the United States, Hyundai probably has more brand equity than Tesla.)

Some states will continue to pursue environmentally friendly policies such as solar-generated or wind-generated power, and they'll likely strengthen regulations for sustainable construction of houses and buildings.   But at the federal level . . . war's over, the polluters won.  Even if a Democrat somehow gets elected President in 2028 - highly questionable at this point, especially given the possibility of Trump being the only candidate allowed next time - it will look really silly if we re-enter the Paris Agreement a second time, and given American inconsistency on the issue, the rest of the world probably won't want us back.  Not that they're doing any better - the number of countries that made significant cuts to greenhouse gas emissions in 2024 can be counted on zero fingers.

If I were still on MySpace, I'd be telling people that I don't want kids.  Because I don't.  Not with the way this planet is going.