The cost of a Trump term, in billions of tons of carbon emissions

On Nov. 4, the US became the first and only country to officially exit the Paris agreement, the landmark 2015 commitment by almost every country to curb greenhouse gas emissions and keep global warming in check.

The exit is no surprise—the only reason it took the Trump administration this long is because of timing restrictions in the document. And to a large degree, it doesn’t change anything: The administration has spent the last four years dismantling most of the climate and energy policy measures that made up the substance of the country’s Paris commitments. Long before the official Paris exit, the world has moved on without US climate leadership.

When Trump was elected in 2016, analysts speculated that the US’s absence from the Paris pact would cede international climate policy leadership to China, along with the potential to capitalize on a rapidly-expanding renewable energy economy. Four years later, that prediction has been validated.

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