What Now for Paris, the Climate, and the Trump Administration? – Podcast with Scott Morris and Jonah Busch

When President Trump announced his decision to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement recently, CGD senior fellow Jonah Busch described the move in a CGD blogpost as a "shameful act of self-harm." Given the chorus of good intentions from other world leaders, as well as governors and mayors in the US, Busch offers advice for how they can step up on climate action, in this edition of the CGD podcast as well as in a follow-up, more forward-looking blogpost How Leaders Condemning Trump’s Paris Pullout Can Match Words with Deeds on Climate.

"It’s great that these many political leaders have signed on,” says Busch, “and I hope that they start turning these into climate action. If they do, they will go a long way toward filling the gap."

My other podcast guest, Scott Morris, senior fellow and director of CGD's US Development Policy Initiative, agrees with Busch’s characterization of the president’s decision as harming the US, which, he says, has traditionally shared a sense of common purpose with other countries.

“In my mind, the politics of this globally have very, very wide ramifications beyond climate—and that’s certainly not to sell climate short,” he says. “It’s a hugely consequential issue, but it really implicates a much wider issue where the modus operandi, particularly as a leader among nations, has been to work in this community of nations. And what we are seeing from this administration in the very justification for the withdrawal is a flat out rejection of that approach. And that really is deeply concerning for a wider range of issues.”