Many people have been holding back reaction to Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement, or just having no reaction at all. The reasoning of ‘not knowing anything about the Paris Climate Agreement’ seems to be widespread among these people. So, we will visit some details before discussing Trump’s decision.

Here’s what you need to know about the Paris Climate Agreement.

The goal of the Paris Climate Agreement is to bring all nations together for one common goal—combatting climate change. The Paris Agreement focuses on a few major points, which are: attempting to limit temperature increase, or global temperature rise, strengthen countries’ abilities to deal with the effects of climate change, have transparency of actions in general, and give enhanced support to developing countries participating in this common cause.

Limiting temperature increase is described as keeping the global temperature rise of this century well below two degrees Celsius. Even further, there is attempt to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Also, Parties aim to have their greenhouse gas emissions at peak numbers, as soon as possible. This means that they hope to soon begin decreasing their greenhouse gas emissions numbers, without any more increase.

Parties are required to report their emissions and implementation efforts on a regular basis. In order to assess the progress of the Agreement, there will be a global stock take every five years. The Agreement’s progress towards its purpose will be the main assessment, as well as informing about the Parties’ further individual actions.

The Paris Climate Agreement opened for signature on April 22, 2016. Thirty days after the “double threshold”, ratification by 55 countries that account for at least 55 percent of global emissions, the Agreement entered into force on November 4, 2016. Since then, many more Parties have entered the Agreement, the total now being 147 Parties.

The Agreement realizes the reality of how difficult these tasks can be to some Parties, especially developing countries, so it focuses on helping vulnerable countries to take part. It hopes that developed Parties can provide technological and other assistance to these developing countries, as well as take the lead and establishing economy-wide reduction targets.

Of course, people are thinking that although these ideas are all great and dandy, we need to realize that it will not help the economy.

My response to that is as follows. We need to prioritize the Earth. Our Earth. OUR HOME. We are on this Earth for some time and that is it. Individually, a human’s lifespan is nothing compared to the age of this Earth. We get to live on this Earth for our extremely short lifetime. Money is not real. Of course, we need to survive and take care of our basic needs, but we also need to realize that we need a good and healthy planet to live on. We could suddenly be hit with a trashed and fully polluted Earth—leaving us gloomy and dying off as a population, no matter how much money our big businesses make. I realize the importance of having a career, doing services that the human race needs or wants, but we need to stop prioritizing profit over persons. In this case, more specifically, profit over the planet we live on. Humans will live on and come along after us, and we should want them to have somewhere safe to live. Your children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc. will feel the effects of what we are currently doing to the Earth.

We are the second highest contributor of emissions in the world. We cannot and should not ignore this. Though we are one of the largest countries, a fact contributing to the reason that we have this standing, it does not mean we can just get away with it. We need to realize that we are one of the biggest issues causing climate change, and we have one of the greatest opportunities to make it better. Us changing our ways and joining the Agreement would help immensely. The United States claims that it is the best country in the world. We place our country as a leader amongst all countries. Leaders should not stray away from what the rest of the population is doing. We are one of only THREE countries that are not in the Paris Climate Agreement. The other two being Syria, which is in a bad civil war right now, and Nicaragua, which thinks that the Agreement does not go FAR ENOUGH to help combat climate change.

So, President Trump, you know climate change is real. Everyone knows it. I have heard people say it is not real and not happening, but all of the scientific research proves it to be REAL. It is extremely real, and it is definitely happening. I have no idea how people cannot understand that. Also, did you even ask us, the people that ‘elected’ you to represent us, if we wanted to stay in the Paris Climate Agreement? No. It is not just Democrats that care about climate change. I know many Republicans that do. Although people may have voted for you, it does not mean that they agree with everything you do and believe. This Earth is all of ours. Not just yours. You do not have the right to not care about its future.

You said that the U.S. would be exposed to “massive legal liability if we stay in”. The Paris Climate Agreement has no liability mechanism. Pulling out of the agreement will not reduce U.S. exposure to liability claims. This action could even increase the exposure.

And finally, let us visit a quote that has been circling around a lot. You said, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”

1. What does that even mean?

2. Pittsburgh elected Hillary Clinton to represent them. Nearly 80 percent of the vote in this city was for Hillary Clinton.

Now you know a little more about the Paris Climate Agreement. No matter if we agree or disagree on Trump and his decision, you have to admit that the agreement has beautiful intentions.