Mayor of Baltimore, Catherine Pugh, with former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in front of the 2017 Mayors Challenge poster at the US Conference of Mayors, Miami Beach, June 26, 2017. TNS/SIPA USA/Press Association.All rights reserved.If the test of successful political leadership could be distilled to a single issue, the fight to safeguard our climate would be a strong candidate. With President Trump withdrawing the US from the Paris Climate Change Agreement (COP21), he abdicates a claim to serious leadership. Instead, he has vastly diminished the power and prestige of the US. And in the process, he has imperiled Americans, and citizens everywhere.
Climate change is real and its impacts will be far-reaching. There is scientific consensus on the relationships between carbon emissions and spiraling temperatures above and below the oceans. There is already evidence of rising sea levels, flooding, heatwaves and worsening population health, including in the US. There is no possibility of making America great again on a dead planet.
Trump’s abdication of leadership on climate change is more than the failure of a deeply flawed individual. It is symptomatic of a dysfunctional international political system organized around nation states. Our national political leaders are increasingly unable to safeguard and protect us, let alone provide a positive vision and lead us to a better future. It is time to re-balance the global system from national to urban sovereignty.
