Donald Trump, dans les jardins de la Maison Blanche, jeudi 1er juin, pour annoncer le retrait de son pays de l’accord de Paris. JOSHUA ROBERTS / REUTERS

The world is currently witnessing an unprecedented series of seismic diplomatic shifts. America is withdrawing from one of the most burning issues of the hour for the future of our planet: global warming. And abdicating its world leadership. The US will no longer serve as a role model or guiding light for the nations of the world. It is shrinking, a huge country withdrawing into itself and accusing others of seeking to harm its interests. Through the voice of Donald Trump, it was the isolationist America of Charles Lindbergh in 1940, the pioneer of civil aviation who fervently opposed US intervention against Germany in World War II, that left the international community in the lurch on Thursday, June 1, in Washington, DC.

Reneging on the commitments undertaken and ardently defended by Barack Obama, America is now withdrawing from the Paris agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It is deserting the climate fight, refusing to do its fair share in the efforts decided by the other 194 signatory nations. According to Mr. Trump, America has no further obligation – whether technological or financial – to slow global warming, and its economic development would be hindered by the accord.

This infantile regression is already a turning-point in and of itself, and it may prove to be one more harbinger of a 21st century that won’t be as “American” as the 20th. But what makes it all the more remarkable is a parallel movement: absent American leadership, Europe is resolutely stepping into the breach. Angela Merkel set the tone last week in Munich after the NATO summit in Brussels and G7 meeting in Italy, where Mr. Trump stuck to a quarrelsome, aloof and isolationist stance. Within the Western camp, said the German chancellor, we Europeans need to draw the obvious conclusions and “take our fate into our own hands”.

No plan B

Thursday evening, the next in this surprising sequence of events, it was Emmanuel Macron’s turn to assess the fallout from the American abdication. Without the decisive impetus of President Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, the Paris Climate Accord, signed in December 2015, would probably never have materialized. But the agreement also came about largely thanks to the efforts of President François Hollande and his foreign minister, Laurent Fabius. France, host to the international accord, has now taken its place in the vanguard of the climate fight.

In an unprecedented initiative, President Macron made a public statement – in French and then in English – to say there is no “plan B”, no renegotiating the deal, and to call on the 194 to abide by the painstakingly reached terms of the signed agreement. Only a few moments later, Germans and Italians joined the French in a joint statement upholding this position, outlining a European response to America’s default and heralding a change of the guard in world leadership.

Mr. Trump, a die-hard climate skeptic, picked the charming setting of the White House Rose Garden to make his announcement. In his signature acrimonious blend of caricature and mendacity, the president portrayed the United States as victims of the greed and unfair ingratitude of other countries – emerging powers like China and India that are benefitting from delays in applying the agreement, and Europeans, especially the Germans, who “have collectively cost America trillions of dollars through tough trade practices and, in many cases, lax contributions to our critical military alliance”.

Trump is trumped by modern times

Mr. Trump claims to be defending the US economy. He thumbs his nose at the fact that, as the world’s second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses, the US is historically responsible for the lion’s share of global warming. But he has been trumped by modern progress: the energy transition is driven by technological advances that are steadily lowering the cost of renewable energies. US corporations and the mayors of some of the country’s biggest cities have got the message. They intend to defy the White House and comply, for their part, with the provisions of the Paris Climate Accord.

But applying the terms of the accord, which depends on the willingness of the signatory states, will be more difficult. It’s a matter of political impetus, of leadership. In a word, the United States, the world’s oldest democracy, greatest economic power and technological leader, will be sorely missed in the fight against climate change. An abdicationist America is not good for Americans or for the rest of the world.

(Translated from the French by Eric Rosencrantz)

Le Monde