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This Week’s Last Week Tonight Focuses on the Paris Climate Agreement

By Leighann Dicks

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Last week, John Oliver said that “For one week, and one week only, the show Last Week Tonight is actually going to talk at some length about the last week, tonight.”

Last Week Tonight used the vast majority of its time to focus on the wild ride of events surrounding what they call “Stupid Watergate” – in other words, the Russian scandal. These events took up so much of the show’s time that Oliver humorously tried to cram one if its typical long-form segments about the Transportation Security Administration into 3 minutes.

This week, the show got back to its typical form, beginning with a couple of shorter segments and then taking a longer look at one topic. With the news the way it is lately, though, Oliver might have to eat his words: this week’s deep dive also focuses on one of last week’s biggest stories, the Paris Climate Agreement.

The agreement’s main objective is to keep global temperature rise this century to under 2 degrees Celsius. In short, the countries in agreement set their own objectives and reconvene every 5 years to reassess.

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America officially pulled out of the agreement Thursday, something Oliver called a “huge deal.” Oliver pulls apart Trump’s speech last Thursday, calling it “flamboyantly deceptive” in its representation of the agreement.

For one, Oliver calls out Trump for stating that the agreement puts America at an economic disadvantage. Trump spoke at length about coal production at home and abroad, but Oliver points out that this isn’t part of the agreement; the word “coal” doesn’t even appear. He also points out that, while America has given the most money toward the Green Climate Fund so far, we are 32nd in terms of giving “as a fraction of gross domestic product.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be Last Week Tonight if Oliver didn’t take some shots at Trump. For one, he points out that 25 companies took out a full-page ad in the New York Times in support of the agreement. Oliver jokes that Trump would never see this; a more effective location would be on a KFC bucket.

Oliver especially emphasizes Trump’s apparent misunderstanding of the voluntary nature of the agreement. There’s no enforcement mechanism as a part of the agreement; there’s just a process to shame countries into compliance. Oliver jokes, though, that this is useless to us since Trump is immune to shame.

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Oliver begins to wrap up by discussing the harm caused by pulling out of the agreement. For one, he says it “pissed off almost everyone” on the global stage, citing disapproval from Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, and the Pope. Oliver also points out the damage to America’s reputation and workers at home, as well as the possibility that this will lead other countries to duck out of the agreement.

One of the zanier moments of the episode showed French President Emmanuel Macron offering his country as a refuge to Americans who believe in and study climate change. Oliver follows this up with a short rendition of Beauty and the Beast‘s “Be Our Guest,” but cut it short for time (reminiscent of last week’s rushed TSA penguin puppets).

The show ended with one of its typical calls to action – Oliver emphasizes the importance of knowing who your local representatives are and where they stand on climate change.

Overall, the Paris Climate Agreement segment goes very in-depth (as per usual). It’s really informative viewing, especially if you haven’t spent much time reading up on this issue.

Though I’m a big fan of Oliver’s breakdown of less-discussed topics, I’m appreciating his recent focus on super-current events. The direction we see next week will be determined by how crazy the news gets in the coming days.

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