Last week, on the eve of President Donald Trump's announcement that he would remove the United States from the Paris climate agreement, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres warned that doing so would threaten U.S. national security.
"If someone leaves a void, I guarantee someone will fill it,” Guterres said during remarks at New York University. “Today, the economy and social aspects are linked to the environmental aspects, but they are also linked to the security aspects, they are linked to the risks of conflict.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden also jumped in the fray, tweeting that, "Exiting #ParisAgreement imperils US security and our ability to own the clean energy future.”
Dr. Jay Lehr, science director at the non-partisan Heartland Institute, however, told American Security News that the Paris agreement would have strapped the U.S. with "draconian" measures and the president's decision is in the best interest of national security.
"The international community's goal of the Paris Climate Accord was to bring the United States down to the economic level of the rest of the world which it currently leads," said Lehr. "Trump knew he could never make America Great again were he to allow the Paris Accord to eliminate our nation's sovereignty."
Lehr said he's "been at this for 45 years" and the impact of the Paris Climate Accord would have been "sheer insanity."
"The agreement was going to crush our oil and gas, eliminate our coal industry, cost 6.5 million jobs and cost us $3 trillion," said Lehr. "The Paris deal had nothing to do with climate change or science, but had everything to do with sucking our country dry."
Lehr's remarks echo what the president said during his remarks announcing the pullout from the accords.
"The Paris Agreement handicaps the United States economy in order to win praise from the very foreign capitals and global activists that have long sought to gain wealth at our country’s expense," said Trump. "They don’t put America first. I do, and I always will."
In an interview with CBS this past weekend, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said that, "what you’re seeing the U.S. do is making sure we’re taking care of the U.S. first.
"The rest of the world would like to tell us how to manage our own environment," said Haley, "and I think that anybody in America can tell you that we’re best to decide what America should do."
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