Trump formally pulls US out of landmark Paris local weather settlement for second time
The US has officially withdrawn from the landmark Paris climate agreement for the second time – reinforcing Donald Trump‘s push to keep America out of the fight against the climate crisis.
The US stands as the only country ever to have withdrawn from the pact, it is alongside Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only countries not party to the agreement. Announced when Trump re-entered the White House last year, the move is one of the linchpins of Trump’s “America First” policy that seeks to remove Washington from international treaties and organisations he sees as of no benefit to the country.
The Paris agreement is at the heart of the international commitment to tackle rising global temperatures. It commits nations to “pursue efforts” to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C, and to keep them “well below” 2C above those recorded in pre-industrial times in order to try and curb some of the harsher impacts of warming that will affect millions of people around the globe.
Given the US is one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases, the move to withdraw from the Paris agreement has drawn sharp criticism from climate groups, human rights advocates and Trump critics.
“The US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement sets a disturbing precedent that seeks to instigate a race to the bottom, and, along with its withdrawal from other major global climate pacts, aims to dismantle the global system of cooperation on climate action,” said Marta Schaaf, Amnesty International’s Programme Director for Climate. “The US is one of several powerful anti-climate actors but as an influential superpower, this decision, along with acts of coercion and bullying of other countries and powerful actors to double down on fossil fuels, causes particular harm and threatens to reverse more than a decade of global climate progress under the agreement.”
“US-based climate advocates and activists now find themselves on the frontlines of a fight with implications for current and future generations everywhere… Ceding ground now risks losing it for years. Neither the planet nor the people living on the frontlines of proliferating unnatural disasters have that much time,” she added.
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California – and one of Trump’s fiercest critics – said: “As climate disasters cost Americans trillions, Trump’s answer is to wave the white flag. California won’t retreat. We’ll keep working with our partners around the world to cut pollution, create jobs, and lead the clean energy economy that the Trump administration is too weak to fight for.”
Trump’s decision does not change the fact that renewable energy sources accounted for more than 90 per cent of new power generation capacity in 2025, but it is China that is leading the way. The US withdrawal will certainly complicate the push to keep global temperature rises within 1.5C, or even 2C.
Earlier this month, the US also announced will leave the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), under which the Paris agreement was established. Together the moves take the US out of the key bodies for battling the climate crisis, as well as helping some of the countries most at risk from changes to temperature and the increasing rate of extreme weather . Recently, the US also left the UN’s World Health Organisation (WHO), a decision the global body said would make “both the United States and the world less safe”.
This article has been produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project
Source: independent.co.uk
