There are any number of reasons to be upset about Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord last week: The agreement had broad, bipartisan support from the American people, the withdrawal was an unpleasant reminder that Trump doesn’t listen to experts, and corporate America certainly wasn’t happy about the decision. John Oliver broke down these reasons and more on Last Week Tonight, pointing out that Trump seems to fundamentally misunderstand what the accord even is, claiming in his very wrong speech that it would limit coal manufacturing in the U.S.—even though the agreement doesn’t even contain the word coal and allows countries to set their own goals.
Perhaps most bafflingly of all, there are no economic penalties for nations who fail to uphold the Paris Accord, the goal of which is to reduce carbon emissions in an effort to prevent the planet’s temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius, a milestone that will likely lead to more droughts and jeopardize the planet’s food supply. “We are not talking about a fictional apocalypse like the one in the movie 2012,” said Oliver, “But a real global disaster, like the movie 2012.” Trump’s withdrawal, Oliver argues, isn’t to protect U.S. interests but his own ego.
But Oliver argues that Trump’s misguided move could have one small, positive effect. “Trump may have inadvertently done us a tiny favor this week, because the problem with climate change is that it’s always felt so abstract, impersonal, and far off into the future.” Whereas graphs and sad polar bear photos don’t always get across the magnitude of the problem, said Oliver, the climate change movement now has a symbol it can rally around: “Because apparently, it was never quite enough for us to motivate ourselves out of love for this large, gassy orb. Maybe, just maybe, we can now motivate ourselves to do something out of our loathing of this one.”
