President Trump announced
the withdrawal of the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement,
an extraordinary move that dismayed America’s allies and set back the global
effort to address the warming planet.
Trump’s decision set off
alarms worldwide, drawing swift and sharp condemnation from foreign leaders as
well as top environmentalists and corporate titans, who decried the U.S. exit
from the Paris accord as an irresponsible abdication of American leadership in
the face of irrefutable scientific evidence.
Trump, who has labeled
climate change a “hoax,” made good on a campaign promise to “cancel” the Paris
agreement and Obama-era regulations that he said were decimating industries and
killing jobs. The president cast his decision as a “reassertion of America’s
sovereignty,” arguing that the climate pact as negotiated under President
Barack Obama was grossly unfair to the U.S. workers he had vowed to protect
with his populist “America First” platform.
With the world’s
second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases walking away from the pact,
scientists said it would be nearly impossible for the world to realize its
agreed goal of limiting global warming to below a 2-degree Celsius (3.6-degree
Fahrenheit) rise above preindustrial temperatures.
Still, many U.S. states
and private companies announced that despite Trump’s decision, they would
continue their own existing policies, such as restricting greenhouse gas
emissions, as well as pursue new ones to demonstrate urgency in addressing the
climate threat.
Citing a litany of
statistics disputed by environmentalists, Trump argued that the pact would hurt
domestic manufacturing and other industries and would put the United States at
a “permanent disadvantage” with China, India and other rising powers. Staying
in the accord, he said, would cost the United States as many as 2.7 million
jobs by 2025 and as much as $3 trillion in lost gross domestic product.
In a gesture to those who
had encouraged him to remain in the accord, Trump said he was open to
negotiating a new climate deal that, in his assessment, would be more fair to
U.S. interests.
The leaders of France,
Germany and Italy issued a joint statement voicing “regret” about Trump’s move,
promising to redouble their efforts to implement the Paris agreement and
asserting that it cannot be renegotiated.
Erik Solheim, executive
director of the United Nations Environment Program, said in an interview that “the
biggest losers will be the American people.”
Central to Trump’s
rationale was his feeling that the United States had been taken advantage of.
Trump argued the Paris accord was so unfavourable to U.S. interests that other
countries were laughing at America.
Obama strongly defended
the Paris agreement as a measure to “protect the world we leave to our
children.” He said the pact was the product of “steady, principled American
leadership on the world stage,” pointing out that it had broad support from the
private sector.
More than 190 nations
agreed to the accord in December 2015 in Paris, and 147 have since formally
ratified or otherwise joined it, including the United States — representing
more than 80 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s also heavily backed
by U.S. and global corporations, including oil giants Royal Dutch Shell,
ExxonMobil and BP. Large corporations, especially those operating in
international markets, have had years to get used to the idea of reductions on
carbon emissions, and they have been adapting their businesses accordingly for
some time.
Condemnations of Trump’s
decision were immediate and strongly worded. Former vice president Al Gore, who
won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work raising awareness about global warming and
personally tried to persuade Trump, said the president’s decision was “reckless
and indefensible.”
Jeff Immelt, the chief
executive of General Electric, tweeted: “Disappointed with the decision on the
Paris Agreement. Climate change is real. Industry must now lead and not depend
on government.”
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs
chief executive Lloyd Blankfeintweeted “The decision is a setback for the
environment and for the U.S.’s leadership position in the world!”
The United States joins
only two countries — Nicaragua and Syria — in opposing a climate agreement
reached by all other nations in 2015. A signature diplomatic achievement for
Obama, the Paris accord was celebrated at the time as a universal response to
the global warming crisis.
However, the U.S.
withdrawal from the Paris agreement cannot actually be finalized until near the
end of Trump’s term because of the accord’s legal structure and language.
Withdrawing the United States from the agreement could take years but such a
move would weaken its goals almost immediately. The United States is the world’s
second-largest greenhouse gas emitter and would otherwise have accounted for 21
percent of the total emissions reductions achieved by the accord through 2030.
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