| Unlike the rest of the article, this section doesn't make an explicit summary claim about the truth or untruth of the President's claims. There is no "true but..." header. If you think some of the facts that they provide -- such as the fact that the accord doesn't mention the word "coal" -- are irrelevant, that's cool. PolitiFact does not draw a conclusion from this fact, and suggesting it does and then blasting it for having done so is pretty frustrating. I also feel that by cherry-picking this one instance, one misses the larger thrust of TFA. You seem to be frustrated that PolitiFact is saying "yes, but" a lot, but what's wrong with that? If the additional context is not useful to you, that's cool. You're entitled not to care. But to me, it's quite useful, and speaks pretty directly to many of the top-level poster's points. Trump: The Paris Agreement would result in "lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories and vastly diminished economic production." PolitiFact: "Take these statistics with a grain of salt." Followed by an explanation of where Trump's claim comes from and why it is weak. Trump: "China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So, we can't build the plants, but they can, according to this agreement." PolitiFact: "China has cut its use of coal three years in a row," with a citation. Trump: "Even if the Paris Agreement were implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it would only produce a two-tenths of one degree -- think of that; this much -- Celsius reduction in global temperature by the year 2100. Tiny, tiny amount." PolitiFact: "[The Paris Agreement] shaves 0.2 C of warming if [it's] maintained through 2100, compared with what we assessed would have been the case by extending existing measures (due to expire in 2020) based on earlier international agreements." IOW Paris gets us 0.2C under the previous agreement, but by pulling out of Paris, we get no agreement, not the previous agreement, which expires. "Needs context." Trump: "At 1 percent growth, renewable sources of energy can meet some of our domestic demand. But at 3 or 4 percent growth, which I expect, we need all forms of available American energy, or our country will be at grave risk of brownouts and blackouts." PolitiFact: Nobody seriously expects us to get 3-4% growth. |