MAGA at the expense of everyone else

Trump administration notifies U.N. of planned Paris climate accord exit

Trump campaigned on a promise to rescind that pledge, saying it would hurt the U.S. economy while leaving other big polluters like China to increase emissions.

This may sound right when you look at the amount of CO2 China is putting out. Based on World Population Review, U.S. CO2 emissions in 2019 is 5.00 billion tons. This is almost half of China's total emissions, which stands at 9.04 billion tons. But... China's population is in the magnitude of 1.4 billion people, compared to a much smaller U.S. population of around 330 million people. In other words, China has about four times as many people, yet emits less than twice as much CO2. This shows in the per capita CO2 emission: U.S. per capita CO2 emission is 15.53, while China's is 6.59, which is less than half. "The U.S. is proud of our record as a world leader in reducing all emissions, fostering resilience, growing our economy, and ensuring energy for our citizens." This no longer sounds very convincing when you look at actual figures.

The thing is, China is now a leader in solar panel production, and has been putting a lot of effort into renewable energy use. This presents a huge problem for global leader U.S.: if the U.S. is not able to match China's efforts in dealing with environmental issues, it will eventually lose moral high ground. As China grows in economic might, the only thing preventing China from usurping U.S. leadership is the current hold that the U.S. has over the narrative on moral high ground. If the U.S. loses this narrative, it will see a weakening of its soft power at a time when its hard power is being challenged by China.

The moral high ground, the Mandate of Heaven, has always been central to China's thinking about intra and inter state relations. We can expect China to continue to work on this narrative, even as the U.S. moves further away.