Trump pulls out of Paris accord – resistance responds
There was plenty of gloom this week as the US elected to join Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries not backing the Paris accord on climate change.
But activists immediately responded, outlining plans to resist Trump, and elected officials across the country said they would ignore the president’s pullout and abide by the terms of the Paris agreement.
The Sierra Club is urging people to call the White House, and 350.org listed some of the wins that have already emerged from the accord, and immediately launched a petition.
Governors from 10 states have said they will abide by the terms of the accord, and 83 mayors from across the country have committed to “adopt, honor, and uphold the commitments to the goals enshrined in the Paris agreement.” Those goals include striving to limit temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels and achieving net zero carbon emissions in the second half of the century.
The mayors include Eric Garcetti from Los Angeles, Marty Walsh from Boston and Bill de Blasio from New York City.
PS: regarding Syria and Nicaragua not signing up to the Paris accord, the Guardian’s Haroon Siddique says that those countries’ “reasons for doing so were very different from those that seem to be influencing Donald Trump, who has previously described climate change as a hoax.” Read Haroon’s piece here.
People’s summit hoves into view
Former NAACP president Ben Jealous, a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2016, announced his bid for Maryland governor on Wednesday, and will speak at the People’s Summit in Chicago next weekend.
Jealous joins Sanders in speaking at the summit, where thousands of activists will meet for workshops and activism training sessions. He sits on the board of Our Revolution and the Huffington Post reckons his candidacy “is liable to nationalize the primary, turning it into yet another proxy war between the party’s progressive and establishment wings.”
We’ll be reporting from the People’s Summit all weekend, from 9-11 June, and producing a super special edition of this newsletter from Chicago.
Illinois waits to see if activism will win on minimum wage
The future of Illinois’ minimum wage is now in Governor Bruce Rauner’s hands, after the state’s house and senate approved a bill that would raise the mandatory payment from $8.25 to $15 an hour by 2022.
Activists with Fight for $15 have spent years campaigning for the increase in Illinois and around the country. On 24 May, thousands of people marched in Chicago to protest against McDonald’s wages, but demonstrations in Illinois go back to at least 2013, when fast-food workers went on strike to demand a raise.
The House voted in favor of the bill 61 to 53 on Tuesday, and the Senate approved it 30-23 on Wednesday. Rauner, a Republican, has not indicated how he plans to act. His press office told the Guardian the bill is “currently under review”.
What we’re reading
“Don’t just blame Trump for quitting the Paris deal — blame the Republican party,” says Andrew Prokop over at Vox. Trump’s decision has been portrayed as a decision driven by his hard-right advisers, Prokop says – but actually, the president is “solidly within the GOP’s consensus on climate change”.
The Democratic party “continues to assume that power shall simply be given to it by dint of their being ‘not Trump’,” writes Douglas Williams. Williams says the party is paying scant regard to progressives who have the energy to defeat Republicans in the 2018 mid-terms.
Picture of the week
Cities around the country lit their buildings green on Thursday, in a show of support for the Paris agreement. It’s unlikely to change Trump’s mind on Paris, but it still offered a little bit of hope after a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
