The United States has formally notified the United Nations that it is withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, triggering expressions of concern and regret from other major powers on Tuesday.
President Donald Trump went ahead with the pullout despite overwhelming evidence of the reality and impact of climate change, with September the fourth month in a row with near- or record-breaking temperatures.
Washington presented its withdrawal letter to the U.N. on the first possible date under the accord negotiated by Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, making the world’s largest economy the sole outlier from the agreement.
The moves come as the world’s leading body of climate scientists warns that humanity has less than a decade to drastically reduce carbon emissions in order to avoid irreparable, catastrophic damage to the planet that could threaten the existance of civilization.
The U.S. will be officially out on November 4, 2020, one day after the presidential election in which Trump is seeking a second term.
Announcing the move, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reiterated Trump’s rationale in 2017 that the accord would disadvantage U.S. businesses.
“It was America that would suffer the straitjacket,” Pompeo told the Fox Business network. “It would be quintessentially unfair to the American people and to the American workers.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, who unsuccessfully tried to persuade Trump to stay in the accord named for his nation’s capital, lamented the decision.
“We regret this and it makes the Franco-Chinese partnership on climate and biodiversity even more necessary,” the French presidency said as Macron visited China, the world’s largest emitter of the greenhouse gases.
Beijing also expressed “regret” over Washington’s decision ahead of the planned signing Wednesday of a joint document on climate by President Xi Jinping and Macron.
“We hope the U.S. can take more responsibility, and do more to contribute a driving force to the multilateral cooperation process, instead of adding negative energy,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.
Russia warned that the U.S. withdrawal seriously undermined the Paris accord.
“Without the largest economy in the world, it’s very, very hard to talk about any kind of climate agreement,” President Vladimir Putin‘s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The United States, the number-two emitter, is still planning to attend this month’s COP climate negotiations in Spain, according to a State Department official.
Racing Toward the Precipice
Pompeo in his statement pointed to a 13 percent U.S. reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 to 2017 even as the economy grew.
The reductions are nowhere near what scientists say are necessary to divert disasterous warming scenarios in the coming decades.
Trump, who took office in 2017, has also pledged to turn back environmental regulations as states such as California and New York try to take stronger action on their own.
Trump has sought to block California from setting tighter standards on car emissions and moved to let states set their own standards on existing coal-fired power plants.
Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the Trump administration has “once again thumbed its nose at our allies, turned a blind eye to the facts and further politicized the world’s greatest environmental challenge.”
Former vice president-turned-climate champion Al Gore deplored Trump’s decision – but said that a new president could re-enter the Paris accord within 30 days.
“No one person or party can stop our momentum to solve the climate crisis, but those who try will be remembered for their complacency, complicity, and mendacity in attempting to sacrifice the planet for their greed,” Gore said.
The Paris accord is non-binding and sets a goal of limiting temperature rises to well within two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels, a goal that scientists say is vital to stop the worst damage from global warming such as increasing droughts, rising floods and intensifying storms.
Contrary to some predictions, Trump’s decision did not trigger a domino effect of withdrawals by countries such as Brazil and Australia.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, an ideological ally of Trump, has belittled environmentalists but has held off on threats to withdraw from the Paris accord, with the European Union requiring adherence as a condition for a major trade deal.
Trump has cast the climate accord as elitist, saying that he was “elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”
But a Washington Post poll last month found that even in his own party he faces some opposition on the issue. The poll showed 60 percent of Republicans agreeing with the scientific consensus that climate change is caused by human activity.
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