According to the June 2018 BP Statistical Review of Global Energy, the United States led the world last year in reducing carbon emissions across the board, even though President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accords in 2017.
American Enterprise Institute reports that U.S. carbon emissions declined by more than 42 million tons in 2017, far ahead of the next most environmentally-friendly country, Ukraine, where emissions declined by 20 million tons. Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Japan also saw major declines in how much carbon dioxide each nation emits into the atmosphere.
Strangely enough, Canada, Spain, the European Union, and China — all signatories to the infamous Paris Climate Accords negotiated by the United Nations — saw significant increases in carbon dioxide emissions. China released 120 million more tons of carbon dioxide into the air in 2017 than in 2016. The EU made up for America’s decline, releasing 40 million more tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
AEI credits the use of natural gas and the practice of fracking with the U.S.’s carbon emissions decrease, even though environmentalists don’t consider natural gas as an “acceptable” alternative energy source akin to wind power or solar.
The revelation comes amid claims that President Donald Trump was directly targeting the environment when he refused to abide by the Paris Climate Accords, even though the Obama Administration, through then-Secretary of State John Kerry, had been a key member of the committee that produced the document.
Those Climate Accords turned out to be non-binding, lacking an enforcement clause that allowed the United Nations to levy penalties on any nation that failed to meet environmental benchmarks. In the United States, though, alternative energy is big business — and profit is a clear motivational force on corporations to dedicate themselves to a cleaner, greener world.