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No is Not Enough -Naomi Klein

WHILE THE WORLD BURNS
Now that Donald Trump has withdrawn the United
States from the Paris climate accord, its time to
get real about something: Pretty much everything
that is weak, disappointing, and inadequate about
that deal is the result of U.S. lobbying since 2009.
But weak is not the same as useless. The power
of the Paris Agreement was always in what social
movements resolved to do with it. Having a clear
commitment to keep warming below 2 degrees
Celsius, while pursuing eorts to limit the
temperature increase to 1.5 C, means there is
no room left in the global carbon budget to
develop new fossil fuel reserves.
Whatever the reasons, the end result was an
agreement that has a decent temperature target,
and an excruciatingly weak and half-assed plan
for reaching it. Which is why, when it was first
unveiled, James Hansen, arguably the most
respected climate scientist in the world, called the
agreement a fraud really, a fake, because there
is no action, just promises.
That simple fact, even without legal enforcement
behind it, has been a potent tool in the hands of
movements against new oil pipelines, fracking
fields, and coal mines, as well as in the hands
ofsome very brave young peopletaking the U.S.
government to court for failing to protect their
right to a safe future. And in many countries,
including the U.S. until quite recently, the fact that
governments at least paid lip service to that
temperature target left them vulnerable to that
kind of moral and popular pressure. As author and
350.org co-founder Bill McKibben said on the day
the Paris deal was unveiled, world leaders set a
1.5 C goal and were damn well going to hold
them to it.
And this was always the task for the global climate
justice movement when it came to Paris: to try to
hold governments to the strong spirit, rather than
the weak letter, of the agreement. The trouble is
that as soon as Trump moved into the White
House, it was perfectly clear that Washington was
no longer susceptible to that kind of pressure.
Which makes some of the histrionics in the face of
the news that Trump seems to be ocially
withdrawing a bit baing. However the Paris
Agreement decision went, we all already knew
that significant U.S. backsliding on climate was in
the cards under Trump. We knew it as soon as he
appointed Rex Tillerson to head the State
Department and Scott Pruitt to head the EPA. We
had it confirmed when he signed his Keystone XL
and Dakota Access Pipeline executive orders in
his first week on the job.
For months we have been hearing about the
supposed power struggles between those who
wanted to stay in the agreement (Ivanka, Tillerson)
and those who favored leaving (Pruitt, chief
strategist Steve Bannon, Trump himself). But the
very fact that Tillerson could have been the voice
of the stay camp should have exposed the
absurdity of this whole charade.It was oil
companies like the one Tillerson worked at for 41
years whose relentless lobbying helped ensure
that the commitments made in Paris lack any
meaningful enforcement mechanisms. Thats why
one month after the agreement was negotiated,
Exxon Mobil, with Tillerson still at the helm, came
out with a report stating that we expect oil,
natural gas, and coal to continue to meet about 80
percent of global demand between now and
2040. It was a bald expression of hubris by the
purveyors of business as usual.
Exxon knows full well that if we want a decent
chance of keeping warming below 1.5-2 degrees,
the stated goal of the Paris Agreement, the global
economy needs to be virtually fossil-free by
mid-century. But Exxon could oer those
assurances to its investors andclaim it
supported the agreement because it knew that ambitious if the U.S. ocially goes rogue. They
the Paris accord had no binding force. Its the
same reason why the Tillerson faction of the
Trump administration thought it could reconcile
staying in Paris while simultaneously dismantling
the centerpiece of the United States commitment
under the agreement, the Clean Power Plan.
Tillerson, better than almost anyone on the planet,
knows how legally weak the agreement is. As CEO
of Exxon, he helped make sure of that.
So as we try to make sense of this latest drama,
make no mistake: The Trump administration was
never divided between those who wanted to
shred the Paris Agreement and those who
wanted to respect it. It was divided between
those who wanted to shred it and those who
wanted to stay in it but completely ignore it.
The dierence is one of optics; the same
amount of carbon gets spewed either way.
Some say thats not the point that the real risk
in the U.S. withdrawing is that it will encourage
everyone else to lower their ambition, and soon
everyone will be breaking up with Paris. Perhaps,
but not necessarily. Just as Trumps health care
disaster is encouraging states to consider single
payer more seriously than they have in decades,
Trumps climate arson is so far only fueling climate
ambition in states like California and New York.
Rather than throwing in the towel, coalitions like
New York Renews, which is pushing hard for the
state to transition entirely to renewable energy by
2050, are getting stronger and bolder by the day.
Outside the U.S., the signs arent bad either. The
transition to renewable energy is already
proceeding so rapidly in Germany and China, and
prices are dropping so sharply, that forces far
larger than Trump are propelling the shift now. Of
course its still possible that Trumps withdrawal
will provoke global backsliding. But its also
possible that the opposite will happen that
other countries, under pressure from their
populations who are enraged by Trumps actions
on pretty much every level, will become more
might even decide to toughen the agreement
without U.S. negotiators slowing them down at
every turn.
And there is another call that is increasingly being
heard from social movements around the world
for economic sanctions in the face of Trumps
climate vandalism. Because heres a crazy idea:
Whether or not its written into the Paris
Agreement, when you unilaterally decide
toburn the world, there should be a price to
pay. And that should be true whether you are
the United States government, or Exxon Mobil
or some Frankenstein merger of the two.
A year ago, the suggestion that the U.S. should
face tangible punishment for putting the rest of
the rest of humanity at risk was laughed o in
establishment circles: Surely no one would put
their trade relationships in danger for anything so
frivolous as a livable planet. But just this week,
Martin Wolf, writing in the Financial Times,
declared, If the U.S. withdrew from the Paris
accord, the rest of the world must consider
sanctions.
Were likely a long way from major U.S. trading
partners taking that kind of a step, but
governments are not the only ones that can
impose economic penalties for lethal and immoral
behavior. Movements can do so directly, in the
form of boycotts and divestment campaigns
targeting governments and corporations, on the
South African model. And not just fossil fuel
corporations, but Trumps branded empire as well.
Moral-suasion doesnt work on Trump. Economic
pressure just might.
Its time for some peoples sanctions.
-Naomi Klein author of This Changes
Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate.

Whitethorn Eugene ED Denson

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