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Friday, 2 June 2017
Donald Trump confirms US will quit Paris climate agreement
Trump said: ‘We will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a
deal that’s fair. If we can, that’s great. If we can’t, that’s fine.’
Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Donald Trump has confirmed that he will withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement,
in effect ensuring the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse
gases will quit the international effort to address dangerous global
warming.
The US will remove itself from the deal, joining Syria and Nicaragua
as the only countries not party to the Paris agreement. There will be
no penalty for leaving, with the Paris deal based upon the premise of
voluntary emissions reductions by participating countries.
“In order to fulfil my solemn duty to the United States and its
citizens, the US will withdraw from the Paris climate accord, but begin
negotiations to re-enter either the Paris accords or a really entirely
new transaction, on terms that are fair to the United States,” the US
president told press in the White House rose garden on Thursday.
“We will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal
that’s fair,” Trump said. “If we can, that’s great. If we can’t, that’s
fine.”
He said: “The fact that the Paris deal hamstrings the United States
while empowering some of the world’s top polluting countries should
expel any doubt as to why foreign lobbyists should wish to keep our
beautiful country tied up and bound down … That’s not going to happen
while I’m president, I’m sorry.”
He added: “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”
Among the reaction, Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, issued a rare
statement saying the new administration had joined “a small handful of
nations that reject the future”. But he said that US states, cities and
businesses “will step up and do even more to lead the way, and help
protect for future generations the one planet we’ve got”.
Trump, who spoke after being introduced by a warm-up band
playing the George Gershwin classic Summertime, argued that the Paris
agreement disadvantaged the US to the benefit of other countries,
leaving workers and taxpayers to absorb the costs and suffer job losses
and factory closures. As of today, he said, the US will cease
implementation of the nationally determined contribution and green
climate fund, “which is costing the US a vast fortune”.
In 2015, nearly 200 countries agreed to curb greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent the runaway climate change that would occur should temperatures spiral 2C or more above the pre-industrial era.
Trump’s decision risks destabilizing the Paris deal, with remaining participants faced with the choice of trying to make up the shortfall in emissions cuts or following the US’s lead and abandoning the agreement.
The US emissions reduction pledge accounts for a fifth of the global
emissions to be avoided by 2030, with an analysis by not-for-profit
group Climate Interactive showing that a regression to “business as
usual” emissions by the US could warm the world by an additional 0.3C by
2100. This would help push the global temperature rise well beyond 2C,
causing punishing heatwaves, sea level rise, displacement of millions of
people and the loss of ecosystems such as coral reefs.
The US withdrawal would not, though, derail global efforts to fight
climate change, said Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief
who delivered the Paris agreement. . “States, cities, corporations,
investors have been moving in this direction for several years and the
dropping prices of renewables versus high cost of health impacts from
fossil fuels, guarantees the continuation of the transition.”
The
US will be the loser from its withdrawal, said Prof John Schellnhuber, a
climate scientist and former adviser to the EU, Angela Merkel and the
pope. “It will not substantially hamper global climate progress but it
will hurt the American economy and society alike,” he said. “China and Europe have become world leaders
on the path towards green development already and will strengthen their
position if the US slips back. The Washington people around Trump fail
to recognise that the climate wars are over, while the race for
sustainable prosperity is on.”
“President Trump is putting his country on the wrong side of
history,” said Laurence Tubiana, France’s climate ambassador during the
negotiation of the Paris deal.
John Kasich, the governor of Ohio and a frequent critic of Trump,
said he shared concerns about “flaws” in the treaty. “I’m convinced we
can correct them and improve the agreement, however,” he said, “by
showing leadership and constructively engaging with like-minded nations,
not by joining the ranks of holdouts like Syria and Nicaragua.”
Bernie Sanders, the leftwing senator and former Democratic
presidential hopeful, called the move an “international disgrace” and an
“abdication of American leadership”.
But House speaker Paul Ryan, the most senior Republican in Congress,
threw his support behind Trump’s decision, saying the Paris accord was
“simply a raw deal for America”. “In order to unleash the power of
the American economy, our government must encourage production of
American energy,” Ryan said in a statement. “I commend President Trump
for fulfilling his commitment to the American people and withdrawing
from this bad deal.”
Conflicting signals
Trump followed through with his campaign pledge to “cancel” US involvement in the Paris accord following months of conflicting signals over whether he would do so or just scale back the US ambition to cut emissions.
The withdrawal represents a victory for the nationalist elements in
Trump’s administration, such as his strategist Steve Bannon, who have
argued the Paris deal undermines an “America first” approach, harms
domestic coal production and hinders efforts to repeal Barack Obama-era
regulations such as the Clean Power Plan. On Tuesday, Trump met with Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency head who has called Paris a “bad deal” that should be discarded.
A group of 22 Republican senators,
headed by majority leader Mitch McConnell, backed the anti-Paris view
in a letter to Trump that urged a “clean exit” from the Paris deal,
which they said added a “regulatory burden” upon the US.
The anti-agreement faction had jockeyed for Trump’s favour over a
rival school of thought, including secretary of state Rex Tillerson and
Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and adviser, that argued the US
should remain in the Paris deal in order to preserve its diplomatic
influence.
Hundreds of large businesses, including Apple, Google and Walmart, also threw their weight behind the deal,
with even fossil fuel firms such as ExxonMobil, BP and Shell supporting
the accord as the best way to transition to a low-carbon economy and
stave off the perils of climate change.
In a bid to calm the frayed nerves of countries most at risk from rising temperatures, the EU and China announced an alliance to stay the course
earlier on Wednesday. Their joint declaration called climate change a
“national security issue” and a “multiplying factor of social and
political fragility.” The Paris pact is a “historic achievement” and
“irreversible”, the document says.
“It is absolutely essential that the world implements the Paris
agreement,” said UN secretary general António Guterres. “If one country
decides to leave a void, I can guarantee someone else will occupy it.”
Environmental groups were scathing of Trump’s decision, with more
than 20,000 members of the Sierra Club calling the White House within
hours of reports that the president had opted to exit the deal. “Donald
Trump has made a historic mistake which our grandchildren will look back
on with stunned dismay at how a world leader could be so divorced from
reality and morality,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the
Sierra Club.
Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City, said he will sign an
order committing the city to the Paris deal due to the “destructive
power” of disasters like Hurricane Sandy. Additional reporting by Tom McCarthy, David Smith and Sabrina Siddiqui
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