Donald Trump has pulled the world’s largest economy out of the planet’s best attempt to fight climate change. Curiously, he came up with the same complaint that his fiercest environmental critics made: the Paris agreement does not do very much to restrain global warming — and he said the resulting price tag was too high.
But multilateral co-operation between nation states is always imperfect and the cost is always controversial. It was remarkable that 195 different countries, at different stages of economic development, with different systems of government, on different continents and exposed to different climates, had come together to agree any self-denying ordinance on carbon emissions. Only Syria and Nicaragua refused to sign up. America’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement is another depressing moment for those optimists who believe, as we do, that we can leave a better world to our children than the one we inherited.
It is a setback not only for the international community but also for Britain. It was the Conservative government here that played a central role a couple of years ago, alongside the French, in securing the agreement in the first place — with the then Energy Secretary Amber Rudd leading the UK’s impressive effort. The current Conservative leadership had also hoped that Britain could act as a bridge between the iconoclasm of the new Trump administration and the realities of the modern global order. The Prime Minister has, for example, made much of her efforts to win the President around to the merits of Nato.
This time around, we clearly — like the rest of the world — had less success. We are told that Theresa May expressed her disappointment privately in a phone call with Mr Trump, though it would have done no harm to have made that disappointment public alongside other G7 leaders. The rest of the world is concerned about Brexit Britain’s attitude towards multilateral co-operation. In the campaign to leave the EU, sovereignty was spoken of as something that should never be pooled. The complaint by Leavers was that we were playing by the rules when others weren’t. The offer to voters was to take back control from foreigners. Now we’ve proclaimed that no deal is better than a bad deal. How striking it was to hear Donald Trump use the same language in the Rose Garden of the White House yesterday. “Foreign leaders ... should not have more to say with respect to the US economy than our own citizens and their elected representatives. Thus, our withdrawal from the [Paris] agreement represents a reassertion of America’s sovereignty.”
Substitute the words America for Britain and you have the Brexiteers’ argument. We have made our decision to leave the EU; now the US is leaving the Paris agreement. On both sides of the Atlantic we would do well to remember that we were present at the creation of the modern world order — and we have a huge self-interest in its continuation. When we pool sovereignty to solve our collective problems, from climate change to security to trade, we don’t lose control — we gain it.
Good luck to the Lions
THE British Lions kick off their daunting five-week tour of New Zealand tomorrow with a match against the Provincial Barbarians that is likely to be the easiest they face in a 10-game itinerary justifiably described as the “toughest in history”. Ahead lie clashes with all five of New Zealand’s Super Rugby teams, the Maori All Blacks and three Tests against the New Zealand All Blacks. The challenge ahead is formidable and we wish our players well. But whatever the outcome, the public can look forward to a thrilling spectacle.
