Trump formally starts exit from climate accord
07 November, 2019
U.S President Donald Trump’s administration said on Monday it filed paperwork to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the first formal step in a one-year process to exit the global pact to fight climate change.
The move is part of a broader strategy by Trump to reduce red tape on U.S. industry, but comes at a time scientists and many world governments urge rapid action to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.
Once it exits, the United States — the top historic greenhouse gas emitter and leading oil and gas producer — will become the only country outside the accord.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed the step in a Twitter post on Monday and pointed out that the United States had trimmed its emissions in recent years even as it had grown its energy production.
“The U.S. is proud of our record as a world leader in reducing all emissions, fostering resilience, growing our economy, and ensuring energy for our citizens,” he said.
An official from the French presidential office accompanying President Emmanuel Macron on a state visit to China, said: “We regret this and this only makes the Franco-Chinese partnership on the climate and biodiversity more necessary.”
Macron and Chinese President Xi Jinping will sign a pact on Wednesday that includes a paragraph on the “irreversibility of the Paris Agreement,” the official said.
The U.S. State Department’s letter to U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres starts the clock on a process that will be complete one day after the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
All the top Democratic presidential contenders seeking to unseat Trump have promised to re-engage in the Paris Agreement if they win. But the withdrawal could leave a lasting mark, said Andrew Light, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute and former adviser to the U.S. climate envoy under Democratic President Barack Obama.
“While it serves the political needs of the Trump administration, we will lose a lot of traction with respect to U.S. influence globally,” he said.
The Obama administration had signed the United States onto the 2015 pact, promising a 26-28 percent cut in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 from 2005 levels.