Stock Markets Hit Record High After Trump Pulls Out Of Paris Deal

Stocks hit new highs as Donald Trump dropped the Paris climate deal. The US president faced a backlash after confirming that he would reverse Barack Obama’s decision to join the pact to cut emissions. But stock markets appeared to brush off the news. The S&P yesterday hit a fresh record highs, while the Dow Jones surged by 0.65 per cent. Today Britain’s FTSE 100 followed the lead to reach to new top levels of 7,598. US stock markets were helped by a fresh round of positive economic data, with the latest jobs numbers coming in far higher than expected. –Lana Clements, Daily Express, 2 June 2017

Did you notice the stock market rising sharply after President Trump announced he would pull out of the Paris Climate Accord and – according to CNN – destroy the entire planet? Markets are irrational, but still, it’s hard to reconcile a decision to destroy civilization with a rise in investor confidence. What should I make of the fact so many citizens say global warming is an existential danger while the people who have money are (apparently) betting against it? How does that make sense? —Scott Adams, 2 June 2017

US president Donald Trump will honour his campaign pledge to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement and defund UN climate programmes, a former adviser to the new administration has said. Myron Ebell served as head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) transition team from early September until 19 January, when he helped to draft an advisory action plan on how to implement Trump’s campaign promises. At a press briefing held by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) and the Foreign Press Association (FPA) in London today, Ebell declined to divulge any details of the EPA document on the grounds that it is confidential. But Ebell outlined Trump’s “very clear” promises on energy and the environment that he is convinced the new president will honour. —Argus News, 30 January 2017

President Donald Trump announced he would fulfill his campaign promise to withdraw from the Paris agreement on climate change, eviscerating a signature achievement of the Obama administration. Trump’s decision came after weeks of intense lobbying from both sides of the Paris accord debate. Corporations, environmentalists and Democrats urged Trump to stick with the deal, while Republicans and conservative groups pushed for withdrawal. While the decision was ultimately Trump’s to make, there were many people working behind the scenes and in public to make sure the president kept his campaign promise to “cancel” the climate accord. Conservative groups, White House officials and Republican lawmakers worked behind the scenes and in the media as part of the “resistance” movement to the Paris accord, which the Obama administration joined in 2016. –Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller, 2 June 2017

Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement has dealt a hammer blow to an elite consensus which has built up around the issue of climate change. That consensus has placed cutting carbon dioxide emissions above people’s jobs and protecting the environment. With US industry already enjoying a substantial competitive advantage over European firms, this decision will make European climate policies all the more unsustainable. If Britain is to keep up with the rest of the world, it is essential that the next government rethinks energy policy to prioritise competitiveness and affordability. –Nigel Lawson, The Daily Telegraph, 3 June 2017

President Trump has a surer grasp of the economic realities than the Europeans. The United States is now the world’s hydrocarbon superpower. Thanks to fracking, it has surpassed Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world’s top energy producer. This abundance of hydrocarbon energy made the US the biggest loser from the Paris Agreement. Quitting Paris turns the US into the biggest winner from Paris – its access to cheap energy giving it a colossal competitive advantage in world markets as other nations increasingly burden themselves with high cost, unreliable wind and solar capacity. –Rupert Darwall, The Spectator, 2 June 2017

So what are the consequences of Donald Trump pulling America out of the Paris Agreement on climate change? Bad news: the planet is going to die. No, really. That’s what the Left is actually claiming. Scientific American tweeted out a photo of the Earth made into a barren wasteland as a result of this one decision. A Vice editor warns that “your kids are gonna die from climate change.” Christoper Mims at the Wall Street Journal declares that we have flunked as a species and that “we still have to de-carbonize our civilization or risk actual extinction.” Extinction. But that seems mild by comparison to others. Trita Parsi says, “Trump just declared war on the very idea of life on earth.”  The hysterical overreaction is instructive, because somehow the backers of the global warming cause can’t manage to remember the scientific substance of their own claims — or much of anything else about the science and history of the climate. If they did, they might know that there is absolutely no reason to think the very viability of life on Earth is at stake. —Robert Tracinski, The Federalist, 2 June 2017