John Oliver takes on US president Donald Trump yet again; this time over Paris Climate Agreement

To say that John Oliver is a gift to mankind would be an understatement of mammoth proportions. Every week, the Englishman brings to the world around 30-odd minutes of dry, witty humour that more often than not, leaves viewers clutching at their sides. The format of Oliver’s show is simple. He generally picks a topic of political significance, and does an in depth analysis. Diving deep into the nitty gritties of the issue, Oliver breaks it down, presenting his viewers with a layman’s understanding of the matter while peppering his monologue with unexpected punchlines to provide comic relief. The latest episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver displayed the perfect amalgamation of humour and political awareness, Oliver, once again, took down president Donald Trump over one of his harebrained decisions on behalf of the United States of America. On 1 June, 2017 Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement under the guise that he was “elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not the citizens of Paris”……. (Just because it has Paris in its name does not automatically make it exclusively for Parisians, Donald — it was just where the terms of the agreement were negotiated. Then again, you’d know that if you DID SOME RESEARCH, O’ leader of the Free World). The Paris Climate Accord, signed on 21 December, 2015 (for those of us that are a little clueless - read, me) is a pact sponsored by the United Nations to bring the world’s countries together in the fight against climate change. Every country that signs the agreement (voluntarily, mind you) makes an individual plan called the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) wherein they aim to cut down on their greenhouse gas omissions and pledge to limit the century’s global average temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above the levels from the 1850-1900 (also referred to as the pre-industrial era). In 2005, president Barack Obama pledged that by 2025, the United States of America’s carbon emissions would be cut down 26 to 28 percent below the 2005 levels. In 2017, Trump took a good thing and turned it bad (the way he does with everything, really) and metaphorically took 10 steps back in the progress that the world had made towards trying to curb climate change. Keeping in mind the adverse effects that Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord would cause, and the severe political significance that the act held: Oliver’s latest episode was titled Paris Agreement: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Peppered with the choicest of swear words to describe what Oliver felt about Trump and his decisions, the show not only targeted Trump, but also managed to take down other Republican representatives that have made disturbingly ignorant remarks about climate change in the past: Pennsylvania Senator Scott Wagner and the North Carolina representative Larry G Pittman. Both men had this to say about climate change [caption id=“attachment_3522821” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Scott Wagner - State Senator of Pennsylvania[/caption]   [caption id=“attachment_3522819” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Larry G. Pittman - North Carolina State Rep.[/caption] Once we take a moment to let this sink in, let us imagine the manner in which Oliver cut these two men to shreds after their statements (I mean, just look at what they’ve said!). The winning line of Oliver’s entire show in my opinion was his poetic statement about Trump’s general existence, juxtaposed with the upholding of the Paris Climate Accord. The beautiful line simply read, “ The only penalty was shame, and unfortunately this president is completely immune to the very concept of that.” Oliver ended his segment by saying that the citizens of the United States may not have gotten motivated to take action against global warming out of their love for a large, gassy orb (cue: Earth), but that the people may finally get motivated out of their loathing for this large gassy orb: [caption id=“attachment_3522849” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  US president Donald Trump. Image from Getty Images.[/caption]