Trump Exits Climate Treaty, Media Forgets Climate Change Exists for Entire Term
The BBC's recent dispatch on Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord in November 2020 (as reported by them) felt less like news and more like a historical reenactment of widely known facts. The White House, they tell us, claimed these treaties 'no longer serve American interests.' This echoes every administration's justification for dismantling inconvenient international
agreements, usually to serve corporate 'interests' that profit from lax regulations. While the BBC plays catch-up on 2020, real climate actions are still stalling. The narrative of 'America First' environmental policy often omits the billions in subsidies and tax breaks given to fossil fuel industries. For instance, the US provided an estimated $20.5 billion in federal fossil fuel subsidies in
2021 alone, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI). This makes any talk of 'American interests' ring hollow, unless that interest is ensuring future climate catastrophe.