The harm of leaving the Paris accord

Washington

THE New York Times reports that the Trump administration has divided over whether to remove the US from the Paris climate agreement, a landmark international deal with vast diplomatic and environmental significance. Withdrawing - or asking the Senate to decide what to do, which is effectively the same thing - would be an enormous and possibly irreparable error. This is not a hard call: Staying in the agreement is costless, leaving would rightly provoke sharp and sustained international outrage.

The Paris agreement does not formally obligate the US to make any particular level of emissions cuts. All it does is ask countries to announce emissions plans of their choosing and report on their progress. It has no major implications for US sovereignty and demands no particular policy balance between environmental and industrial concerns. If the Trump administration wants to move that balance towards fossil fuel interests, it does not have to leave the Paris agreement to do so.