5 Bad Reasons to Ditch the Paris Climate Agreement 

Derek be careful. Nowadays, protecting literacy and scientific facts is considered "politics" and you might be insulted or hated just for stating facts.

Republican Congressman "We need to cut all subsidies to green energy to let the market decide." Same Republican Congressman "We need to increase subsidies to the coal and oil industry so we can generate more jobs." Green Energy Industry employs 769,000 Americans Coal Industry employs 53,420 Americans Decreasing subsidies to green energy and increasing to coal is a sure way to get more people unemployed and hurt the economy. Unfortunate... 98% of people, and 100% of people in the White House, don't know basic economics.

I skipped the 'bad' when I read the title and thought wtf didn't expect this from this channel

I agree with one thing, that in the U.S., we need to be responsible for reducing emissions for ourselves before pointing fingers at anyone else. We don't need a non-binding contract that takes an annual cut to be in a club that we don't need to be a part of. If the companies in the U.S. want to induce more cleaner and sustainable energies, they don't need to force any other company to do so until they've done it themselves, without the subsidies that the government gives for such things. They could make a newer and better alternative to solve the problems of renewable energy and allow progression to take its natural course. This Paris Climate Agreement can be looked at for guidelines, but it makes no substantial changes either way, which is why Nicaragua didn't even bother looking into it, since they may already be looking for better alternatives on their side. The U.S. can do the same thing, and it doesn't need to have to be forced to do it, so it can come more naturally, like how Tesla won over the U.S. with a great electric car.

this is why America needs a better education system.

For people who say derek shouldnt upload this kind of videos: -Climate change is about destroying the world. It shouldn't be politics. -It is his second channel so, he can upload whatever he wants.

"Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man how to fish, he will eat forever."

Great video! Super informative and something all people need to hear.

How many natural (and precious) resources need to be mined to make solar panels, batteries, wind turbines, etc. and how much fossil fuel needs to be used in order to create that supply chain (from end to end)? Also: What is the ecological effect of having a world full of used batteries that are the size of a car? How do we deal with that waste?

wait what, even somalia agreed? i don't think they have any factories to begin with.

If the agreement is non binding and each country decides its own goal which could be to do nothing, what's the point of being in it to begin with? Trump could have stayed in the agreement but agree to do nothing, how is that any better? Staying in the agreement probably wouldn't have done any harm but removing from the United States from some meaningless agreement doesn't hurt the environment either.

RU-vid's "up next" feature is displaying PragerU arguing #4. RU-vid is bad at this.

Meanwhile, more than 500 Belgian climatologists are denying Trump's existence... Genius.

Where are all these climate change deniers coming from? How can you be a climate change denier and follow a science channel at the same time?

Man, that shirt looks mad comfortable

If it is non binding then why join at all?

The reason Trump did this is because he has friends in the fossil fuels industry.

Facts are out of fashion, haven't you heard?

It seemed sensible sort of right until he said China and India aren’t contributing to the problem.

I live in Vancouver, the carbon tax goes into a general slush fund for subsidizing LNG initiatives, which in turn will end up contributing to the total CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Any data that points to the contrary is likely due to higher efficiency building construction mandates, and new vehicles on the roadways that are also much more efficient in the consumption of fossil fuels. By no means is this a "green" city however, because there are blocks of houses that were built in the 90's that are demolished every day here. Developers are replacing them with high density condominiums, whose building materials are sourced through countries like China, and I will argue that Vancouver itself is contributing much more CO2 into the atmosphere through proxy due to this reason. We are not a green city. The carbon tax is simply a tax, it has not stopped me or anyone else from driving in our cars. It's a punitive tax, nothing more.

Why isn't this on the main channel?

Sorry but logic, facts, and common sense are not allowed in this discussion.

“He’s not gonna be the president in 2025 anyway” I’ll be back to see how this comment ages

The video says that even though BC implements a carbon tax, the economy still performs equally well than the rest of Canada. However, if there is no carbon tax in BC, I suspect that the economy would be actually performing better. Just using Ontario as an example, as the Wynne government puts all of these environmental hindrances to their economy, Ontario starts to do poor. It's actually one of the provinces that receive payment through equalization. Please don't reference the polls. Haven't we learnt anything from the polls and the result of the presidential election?

It's tough to argue about other countries living up to commitments, when you back out of commitments.

Cue the Climate Change deniers.

Your explanation in #1 is exactly why backing out doesn't even matter. It's a non-binding agreement. It's meaningless and gives a false sense of accomplishment. If we want to act, we need to act, not just say we're going to.

Great content. One question for you though - Why no 4k versions?

Dirty energy privatizes the profits, socializes the cost!

Sorry, Derek. The first thing I though when I read the title was "Oh no! Now Veritasium is making click bait list videos too!". Thanks for the video. I thought your explanations were very well articulated.

Good job, Derek. I don't believe that CO2 is contributing to global warming to the extent that many people do, but I still enjoyed this video, because with the whole climate change debate that is going on today, it seems like nobody is bothering to be respectful to those who hold opposing views. Again, I don't believe that climate change is a very big problem like many people, but that doesn't mean I'm justified in yelling my point to them and trying to force them to my point of view, and it doesn't make anybody else justified to dismiss me as a crazy climate change denier. This doesn't just apply to climate change debate: it's something that's impossible to not see in any political debate. The reason why I enjoyed this video, even if I didn't agree with it, is because you clearly and coolly stated your stance on the issue and didn't force it down my throat. Even if we can't come to an agreement of climate change, I hope that everyone reading this can agree with me that in any debate, it is important to remember to be respectful and not dismiss the opposition with name-calling and shouting. Thanks for reading this comment, (I know it's pretty long) and I hope you have a great day!

My wife says, "This video needs graphics..."

Derek! We know the comments section is garbage; don't spend an ounce of effort on them. *Don't just "stick to science".* We need thoughtful, fact-based *opinions* from people like you! Don't let this get you down or discourage you! People who loudly and publicly announce they're unsubbing are not the kind of people you want here, anyway. More likely, they were troll accounts, or just rallied here by some subreddit to do exactly what you said in Point #6 - to piss off the opposition. SPEAK YOUR MIND - it's a good mind, Derek, and we need to hear what it has to say.

why can't we just switch to salt nuclear power plants???

What is the music in the last few seconds! I know I know it, but cannot remember where I heard it, and it is killing me! =D

Why would we pay for a nonbinding agreement?

Ideocracy (The movie) is becoming more realistic every day.

Hey Derek, I've seen you read and answered to comments at the moment, so I just wanted to ask when we can expect more content from the sciencium channel. Also, well put together video, man

Number 4 is a great argument! Well thought out, well articulated

Why the Paris Accord doesn't work: It would reduce temperatures by 0.3 farenheit in a century, while costing a fortune. So, what would happen at the end of the century? Well, the temperature would be reduced by about 0.3 farenheit, and would put many countries into debt and the US into even more debt. Sooner or later, these countries would not be able to afford the Paris Agreement, and then would drop out. In order to recover economic devastation, they would take faster ways (gas, powerplants, coal burning), and the tiny impacts the Paris Agreement would have made would be overturned by the new processes. A better to approach climate change is deeper research. Before we should consider making changes, we should actually have knowledge about what we are going to do. All the good changes made to the world happened with knowledge of the problems. Making changes without knowledge is insanity.

Love your videos my man. It's a shame there's so many fools in these comments.

this is the first veritasium video with more disliked ratio.. well played Trump supporters.. just disliking for not having a valid argument.

You gave the best reason to get out within the first two minutes. Individuals can still do what they think is right. It isn't the responsibility of the federal government to tell you how much of your money should go to green tech or any environmental policy.

7:38 Is probably the most important point of this video. If only certain people realized this.

Let it be forever remembered that when faced with the greatest challenge for humankind, the United States chickened out.

Good video Derek, thanks. I've never been a big fan of the free-market argument, it's so obvious that there's an externality that's being suffered by a third party which is not imposed no either the buyer or seller of the energy. For a free market to price an externality, either the seller or the majority of the buyers need to genuinely care enough to pay more, buyers need to be informed on what they're buying and what impact they're having, and there needs to be a genuine choice between energy alternatives.

Because it costs the US 15 million dollars. And a study conducted by MIT concluded that if the US stayed in the Paris Agreement it would only drop the global average temp. by .002 degrees Celsius

a) your last comment and the way you put it is priceless, b) on your 3rd point, I think that there is a factor as important here as what you mentioned. When something that is needed in Europe or the U.S. is manufactured in China or India or any other country, is that CO2 produced there really part of the quota of that country? Isn't this a bit like me cooking my diner in the neighbors house throwing my garbage in their trash can and then saying that they polluted and that they used the energy?

Make our planet great again!

You seem to be upset. I once had the dream to maybe move to the USA but with what is happening there I don't think it fits my moral values. America first should mean to be the first and best in the world with morals, democracy and technology, like it used to be and not pure egoism.

Costs money, does nothing to actual climate, money goes to some random agencies. Canadas GDP would have probably grew even more if they were to drop this shitty agreement. Sorry for grammar mistakes this is my 4th language.

Labeling China as a developing country to reduce the required standards is only palpable to those who don't see the politics behind it; you don't blackmail one of your biggest enemies with an agreement that's not legally binding by any means. Just like the US is not really adamant about women's rights in Arab countries (unlike elsewhere) since they need their oil. But I'm sure no one will dare to adress that.

Who needs a planet when you can have a growing economy?

2veritasium, the argument that you made against free market thing is called tragedy of the commons

i respect you alot, your so lvl headed

If the paris agreement doesn't enforce its points, then what's the use of it?

Thanks for this man. Seriously. Some people reject facts just because they're considered to be part of the opposite viewpoint. But science doesn't have viewpoints so... America, get your shit together

because he is drinking #covefefe

I think it's psychological. I think we're dealing with what Freud called the Death Drive (popularized as the Death Instinct). It's the same reason people in certain situations go off and join gangs even though that lifestyle will kill you - that's the whole point. At a mass level this means war, pollution, and ultimately genocide. Contrast this to the Life Instinct - in the individual manifesting as eroticism, creativity, and kindness, and on the social level technological / social progress, economic growth, etc... I think we've gone to a dark place in the world and not everyone is going to make it because not everyone wants to live!

The amount of people agreeing with the exit from the agreement scares me

Reading some of the comments here make me really angry

I can't agree with you any more... this video is great.

2:52 The salt lmao XD

United States government role in the development of new energy ... - The MISI report found that non-hydro renewable energy (primarily wind and solar) benefited from $74 billion in federal subsidies, or 9% of the total, largely in the form of tax policy and direct federal expenditures on research and development (R&D).

"It's bad for the economy, because if we force people to use a less efficient means of production, we'll be forced to innovate." Logic...

A poltical video from Veritasium. Personally I think its a very important one.

lmao that ending killed it. Right on!

His first point says it all. It is non-binding so it does not matter if we do it or not. Unfortunately, we chose the later.

Good video, but you're gonna get alot of backlash from the Trump supporters. No matter what logical evidence you put in front of them they're gonna continue on as if they didn't see or hear anything. Keep it up

"It all burns as long as I'm elected" that's all they care about.

You're absolutely right: Free markets do not work when the markets are not free!! If your mind can fathom for even a moment that the energy industry in this country has been free to compete for the last 100 years then... just wow. smh.. In a free market economy any company wishing to compete in that market is subject to the morality of its customers. For example if it publicly came out tomorrow that your favorite retailer was involved in sex trafficking then your favorite retailer would cease to exist as people race to stop spending their dollars there. So if it is the morality of society at large that CO2 emissions be cut then people will vote with their dollars for the companies who's practices are inline with this morality. The energy market in the US (and world wide really) has been tainted by generations of government facilitated monopolies on behalf of big oil. Get the govt completely out of energy (where they have no legal grounds for interference to begin with) and watch how quickly market forces are able to force one company after another to either clean it up, or close up shop.. This is of course predicated on the idea that climate change is anything but a shill for the expansion of secretive globalist agendas. Cheers

You ignored the fact that 100 years from now even with the most optimistic (by that I mean extreme optimism) the temperature will have lowered by 1F but will have costed an estimate of $100T which could be put into companies actually leading in clean energy.

7: money 8: oil influence over him 9: having the personality(and the hands) of a 5 year old

Trump's decision was so bad that almost no one in my Republican small town agrees with him

great video - an intelligent and non-insultive debate to the topic.

All good points...but why do we need a president or anyone else to agree to a non binding agreement to accomplish this? The people designing, marketing, selling and buying the more efficient solar cells, and inverters and anything else needed to be "green" are free to do so. Set your targets and go out there and hit them.

screw the deal, each country invest in your clean enegy

Nice video. I encourage scientists like Derek to get more involved in politics since they're the ones with the facts and the brain. I dread politicians who try to engage in science.

I think all of your reasons are pretty well argued. The one thing that is dubious is the effectiveness of carbon taxes. I'll look into the one in Canada, but just because it worked there does not mean it will work everywhere else, and it certainly does not work by causing emitters to bare the tax burden. You have to keep in mind that a carbon tax by its very nature is regressive because the costs of the tax will be passed on by corporations to the consumer. You also have to realize that energy production is a basic element of the infrastructure of the economy, and also where most emissions occur, so literally the entire capital structure of the economy is affected by the carbon tax. Theoretically this says that the costs will be borne nearly in proportion to energy usage across the economy. Because wages and salaries will not go up immediately to account for the higher prices of mostly every product, in the very short run, consumption of products that require emissions should go down. For the markets to clear properly, the supply will also have to drop (because the reduced demand will create a surplus at the current price). The price itself cannot just drop to cause clearing, because it is in response to the higher input costs deep in the capital structure. Thus, emissions should drop in the short run as supply decreases. This is the hoped for outcome. In the long run, wages and salaries are expected to increase as "aggregate" markets begin to clear, but it is hoped that by this time energy production is now using "green" technologies. Read below to see why this is hoped for or expected and why in the real world it won't work. Energy production would also now have an incentive to invest in technologies that are not subject to the tax (so clean emissions). This is of course signaled by the decreased energy usage which should reduce their profits. They want to make the same amount of money as before. Here is where real world problems start to get in the way of the expected outcomes from economic theory working! First off, energy production companies enjoy government granted, geographical monopolies. They don't have any competition that will give any prime/first mover benefit to quickly developing cleaner production processes. But as mentioned above, they should still work on it. This is where problem 2 comes in. Large energy producers don't actually make any money off selling power right now anyway. As an example, in California, the Public Utilities Commission caps profits on assets held by these companies. So how do the companies make money? They simply build assets that are unnecessary for the current demand and raise their rates (so they do, I guess, sort of make money selling power, but only because of this shady shit). Even if this was fixed, which it won't be (plenty of people get rich off of it), we have to deal with problem 3, which is the huge one that doesn't have a (viable) technical solution yet. That is the problem of distribution of power and this is very much an infrastructural problem. Of course we all know the sun doesn't shine at night, so how are solar producers going to produce energy to distribute at that time? The common solution proposed is to store excess production in batteries, and until recently batteries that could be used to do this didn't exist. The problem now is that batteries have a short lifetime and the chemicals used in them are considered dangerous, hazardous waste. The problem that producing the batteries requires emissions is only a short run problem of course, because eventually the feedback loop that allows them to be produced by the clean energy power is established. But human beings still haven't solved the big problem of what to do with hazardous waste (or any waste for that matter). Now we end up substituting one form of pollution (greenhouse emissions) for another (disposal of batteries). This happens at such a massive scale that it isn't really clear if one is better than another. So this is all to say that those who are responsible for emissions don't really have to bare any costs because they just pass them along, they are well connected enough already in the US that they will not see significant losses when markets react to those costs, and even if all the economic problems are solved and the markets are allowed to clear and lead to clean energy production, we still don't know if the outcome (lots of hazardous batteries that need to be trashed) is better than our current greenhouse gas emissions. People are jumping on the bandwagon to support the gigafactories of Elon Musk without understanding that there are huge challenges to getting those working on the energy grid (but it is doable with considerable waste in transmission losses -- though those losses only occur when stored energy is powering the grid), and that they will lead to hazardous waste that if not handled properly will lead to a bunch of toxic chemicals getting into their water supplies (and governments in the US don't seem to care too much about problems like that anymore).

the mention of a cost associated with CO2 is correct, the correct way to deal with it a create a tax that correctly prices the negative externality, unfortunately people make taxes with the aim to curb behaviors. like wise areas in the world like northern Canada may benefit from increases in CO2 and by the same line of reasoning they should introduce subsidies and credits

the free market idea of no regulations is insane and will not benefit society

I really liked the tone of the argument here!

Greatly put Derek :) Wherever we are from we should do our best to reduce the carbon footprints.

I do like how you got around saying China is the number 1 polluter right now by diluting the numbers by including their non industrial period

BUT BUT BUT... WHAT ABOUR HER EMAILS?!??!??!??

1. The Economy has grown since the US signed the agreement and reduced there emissions by 10% + 2.Fossil fuels are heavily subsidised so if it was a true free market fossil fuels would become more expensive overnight 3.China is going to meet their pollution reduction targets well before the 2025 deadline

Indeed. I might as well send in my piece of personal stationary proclaiming what i might do to reduce carbon emissions in the future. We'll see, maybe i change my mind and do something completely different when the time approaches.

Yeah the climate accord put strict regulation on the USA that were super ambitious while other counties goals were “out carbon will peak sometime in the future and we will reduce them after” basically they do nothing we take the burden while they do the majority of pollution

The biggest and most controversial part of the agreement, and the reason we withdrew, was that it's a very poor deal. It's expected to only give about 3/10ths of one degree of the necessary temperature drop in order to help with climate change; this is going to cost $100 trillion. That's a *_lot_* of money to toss at "it might help".

Doesn't your first point explanation also defend the idea that this agreement was just symbolic and doesn't really matter? If the only policy change from the last administration is that we left the agreement, but don't change any pollution regulations, the outcome will be the same.

I think the states should come together with their own form of Paris agreement. Get as many states to sign on as possible and just don't hold our breath waiting for the FEDS to realize the environment may be more important than profits...

If it's just the floor, not the ceiling, then start with the ceiling, I don't want tax dollars to go into something that isn't going to work, which it's not.

Lets think about the population of The USA and EU, in the EU are 500mil humas and usa 323. And both got 30%

Putting government regulations on energy in order to reduce CO2 emissions will ABSOLUTELY hurt the economy. It will make energy more expensive; it really is just simple economics. You also mentioned that countries like China and India are making strides at reducing their emissions - but what China stated under the Paris Accord is what they are already doing. They didn't come up with some grand new plan to stop their emissions (they are the highest emitting country). India's agreement is contingent on receiving billions of dollars from developed countries. At the end of the day, with all countries holding true to their agreements (which almost certainly they will not) the temperature would be .2 Celsius less than what it would have been by the year 2035. Why should we sacrifice economic success for such a minuscule difference in temperature? The earth has heated and cooled for billions of years, we are not on the brink of extinction from global warming. Everyone needs to calm down - the Paris agreement would have done next to nothing to stop climate change and would absolutely have hurt the US economy.

So, it's just a goal? Then fuck it.

For point number 2, is people actually want clean air they would invest and purchase from the company that pollutes less and therefore that company would be a better investment

To remain level headed about all of this, can we get a 5 Good Reasons to Ditch the Paris Climate Agreement. Then perhaps have a dialectic over the arguments? If anyone else did this, I'm worried it would just be ignored and placed on the level of someone who would argue against climate change. For example, under the agreement 100 billion dollars (USD) are to be allocated per year for developing countries by 2020 (and onward). One of which is China, a direct competitor to US manufacturing. That's my only good point though, but I would absolutely applaud anyone who would support an open discussion over this. It is my personal belief that progress can only be made with thesis and antithesis. Perhaps as you stated at the end of the video, with the US "officially" leaving the agreement more people will try to uphold it by their own accord, and more importantly by their own will.

Why didn't you talk about how much it cost?

Old money speaks louder than new ideas.

Great Video!