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Comment by mistermann | Hacker News Reader

> Canada, the European Union, and China have said they will honor their commitments to the pact even if the United States withdraws.

I'm not sure about other countries, but my understanding is that Canada is "honoring our commitments" to the Paris Climate Agreement in a way similar to how NATO members are honoring (or not, as the case may be) their financial commitments to NATO.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28032017/justin-trudeau-c...

But I suppose "that's different", right?

If the motivating factor behind stopping climate change is saving lives, how come no one ever gets morally outraged at non-American countries not keeping their word when it comes to military funding, which I think could be argued saves lives as well? (Although to be fair, the net number of lives saved by military funding is debatable.)

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Because other people know that the mutually agreed deadline for the 2% spending target is 2024. Now is 2017.

>Although to be fair, the net number of lives saved by military funding is debatable.)

That is the 2nd, and maybe more important reason.

As others have pointed out in this thread, the 2% is merely a target and should therefore be disregarded.

Enjoy the fruits of your demeanour.

The NATO agreement reached in 2014 was:

>aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO Capability Targets and filling NATO's capability shortfalls.

It's not 2024 yet, and note that the agreement is to 'aim' - not exactly binding.

As for the article you yourself linked to:

>The report only models policies in place up to last Nov. 1. Since then, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's administration has made a number of significant climate policy changes through the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, an agreement between federal, provincial, and territorial governments to reduce emissions published on December 9.

>"I think there are a lot of reasons to believe we are actually better off than the report suggests," Flanagan said.

>More will be need to be done, however, to meet their targets, said Jake Schmidt, international program director at Natural Resources Defense Council.

http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_112964.htm

This is an entirely separate issue. Also I don't think that military funding is an efficient way to save lives

It certainly is a separate issue, but it has many similarities such as shared responsibility, and I get the sense that a portion of the moral outrage is based on a matter of principle.

I just find the nature of some of these discussions to be a little bit dishonest/disingenuous, everyone is always eager to get mad at the US, if you ask them to look in the mirror (whether the subject is directly comparable or not), everyone isn't so eager any more. Nothing to be terribly ashamed about as it's pretty common human behavior, I'm just pointing it out in a Devil's Advocate sort of way, but on a serious note, as a voter this behavior this type of behavior certainly influences the way I vote.

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