Vive La France?

As of today, the United States is no longer a participant in the Paris Climate Accords, an agreement signed on April 22nd, 2016 to collectively limit greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020. Over 195 nations signed the Accords, and initially the United States was one of them. It was rightfully hailed as one of the great accomplishments of environmentalism.
However, even before he assumed the Presidency, Donald Trump was a staunch opponent of the Paris Climate Accords. He held the belief--a belief many other CEOs of large companies tend to share-- that a regulation of greenhouse gas emissions would force companies to not be as productive as they might otherwise be. While not intending to debate the merits of these claims, it should be pointed out that in the past year alone, more jobs have been opened up in solar power and other renewable power sources than in nonrenewable power sources such as coal.
Today, the decision was made. Greenhouse gas emissions in the United States will no longer be regulated by the Accords. The potential effects of this could be devastating. To put it another way, China--the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases-- did sign the Accords, and is ramping up its production of wind turbines and solar panels. How ironic, then, that Trump has called global warming "a hoax invented by the Chinese", when they are clearly quite worried about it!
During his speech in which he formally withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords, Trump asserted that "this agreement is less about the climate and more countries gaining a financial advantage to the States." Needless to say, this is false. The Accords are not intended to give the participant nations economical advantages over one another--at least, not the nations that actually participate. Ironically, by withdrawing from the Accords, Trump has actually made the US more vulnerable to foreign competition, not less. Other countries' clean energy markets will continue to produce new jobs, while the US will continue wasting money on its obsolete fossil fuel industry.
But what can be done? Can we trust the companies themselves, on whose behalf Trump exited the Paris Climate Accords, to regulate their own greenhouse gas emissions? 70% of adult US citizens support the Paris Accords, and many of them are lobbying for companies to regulate their own emissions. Time will tell if they are successful.