Credit: Julia DeSantis

Look at this map showing the countries which ratified the Paris agreement. The agreement Trump pulled out of a few weeks ago.

We already know that the Trump administration’s diplomatic course is already destroying the trust that the world, even it’s longstanding allies, are putting into the US.

But the fallout from pulling out the agreement could be like nothing seen before. Because it’s truly and utterly evil. And because the agreement itself is like nothing before.

Green and orange mark every country which signed the agreement. The US will be the first to pull out of it. By L.tak — Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48320267

Notice that besides Nicaragua, to whom the it didn’t go far enough, only 3(!!!) countries did not sign the agreement.

You can see a visualization of the diplomatic isolation the US is in when it comes to climate policy here. The following three countries, the only ones who didn’t sign the agreement, seemingly are Trump’s role models on how to conduct foreign diplomacy:

Syria, which is led by war criminals and in which the worst humanitarian catastrophe since decades is taking place.

Taiwan, which has next to zero diplomatic relations and can’t sign the agreement, but nonetheless passes tremendous Greenhouse gas reduction acts. They de facto try to pursue the agreement’s goals, even if they are not diplomatically bound to doing so.

The part of Mauretania occupied by Morocco, which is anything but a real country.

This is what Donald Trump is maneuvering the USA into on the world diplomatic stage. At some point the US might as well be treated either as an isolated state, a failed state or an international pariah.

The short-term consequences for the US won’t be nice. At least I hope they won’t. Obama miraculously managed that countries like Iraq, France, Germany and many others discredited or attacked under Bush trusted and liked the US again. But this second chance should now be gone.

Photo: Agence France-Presse

Europe, or rather Germany and France, is getting closer. Both countries are increasing their cooperation, not only to strengthen the European Union but also to fight climate change and to fight Trump’s irrational decisions.

We see, the withdrawal from the agreement isolates the US from it’s most powerful ally, the European Union.

President of the European Council Tusk described this betrayal:

“ Today we are stepping up our cooperation on climate change with China, which means that today China and Europe have demonstrated solidarity with future generations and responsibility for the whole planet. We are convinced that yesterday’s decision by the United States to leave the Paris agreement is a big mistake — bigger than not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. The fight against climate change and all the research, innovation and technological progress it will bring will continue with or without the United States.”

“China and Europe have demonstrated solidarity with future generations and responsibility for the whole planet” -Trump’s America didn’t.

The symbolic confirmation of this shift of alliances happened when newly elected French president Macron swerved past Donald Trump To Hug Angela Merkel Instead.

Additionally the decision, along with the cancelling of the TPP, will strenghten China’s soft power globally. Not only are the EU and China strengthening their ties in order to fight climate change, China is assuming a global leading role as a Superpower in the fight against it.

The US’s allies feel betrayed. And rightly so:

Because long-term, Climate change is the most important issue facing humanity in the 21st century because it will horrendously amplify all other global and regional issues. I don’t want to delve too much into it:

It is real

Intervention must happen fast and extensively in order to save human civilization itself (I wish I was kidding)

It could be apocalyptic

it is already happening

The consequences can already be felt

This is the big one. The effects of climate change aren’t some hypothetical dystopias that will only effect future generations. They are happening right now.

The Syrian Civil War is the first example for climate change dramatically harming global stability. The buildup to the war evidently shows that:

Look at the [still only indirect] consequences of global warmingthat we can feel right now, all of which directly or indirectly due to the Syrian Civil War:

For Syria it means the rise of Islamic terrorism in the destabilized Syrian region as IS established a barbarian, lawless zone similar to the Eastern front in WW2

Generally it generated the worst humanitarian crisis since Ruanda

For the West it means a mass refugee crisis leading to mass migration into Europe and bringing the EU, one of the most succesfull peace-keeping projects of all time, onto the brink of collapse

For the US it helped a dangerously incompetent and irrational leader to power as many felt threatened by Islamic Terorrism.

Obviusly not all of this is solely or even mainly due to climate change: The SCW would have happened without it, but man-made climate change made it even worse.

And this this is only the beginning. Imagine what might be a generation or two from now. Desperation makes people do horrible things and resource scarcity will only increase as the temperature rises.

By BBC NEWS — http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5269296.stm

Water supply already is a massive problem in the region. With every degree we add to theglobal temperature, the desert comes crawling closer while water and food become rarer.

There is no other way to put it. Donald Trump’s climate policies are a threat to this world.

But there are uplifting news as well. I am proud of my country, the European Union and any other country that combats the horrors of global warming. China should be noted as it’s enormous population not only pollutes the most, but also suffers heavily under said pollution

But I want to explicitly applaud another country. One that has broke news today: India.

It already broke news when it beat it’s rival Pakistan’s tree planting record back in 2016. Shouldn’t this be the way we resolve any hostilities between countries? :P

But seriously, these efforts are amazing. And India one-upped itself today as it planted a breathtakingly high number of 66 million trees in 12 hours.

Both of these countries face heavy domestic issues and especially China’s political system is definitely not something we should look up to. But nonetheless it shows that gigantic efforts can be done to alleviate the effects of global warming.

We can fight climate change even without the US. But every help is not only appreciated, but also necessary. The US pollutes outrageously heavily in per-capita terms, considering it’s enormous population. Additionally, it’s the second largest polluter as a whole.

As such I’m very proud of the hundreds of mayors and governors who pledged to fulfill the Paris agreements in their cities and states. These people not only not only are true patriots, caring about their fellow Americans and the future generations.

They are champions on a global scale, participating in an unprecedented global collaboration by most of mankind itself to save the planet we love, the planet we live on. I want to thank everybody who does his thing to help this cause and I want to express my support to everyone who resists Trump’s climate policies.

Thank you.