"President Trump's
decision to walk away from the Paris agreement is irresponsible and
shortsighted."
Monday, November 04, 2019
As President Donald Trump's
administration on Monday took the first step to formally withdraw from the
Paris agreement, climate campaigners reiterated concerns about the United
States ditching the landmark 2015 deal that aims to bring countries together to
tackle the climate emergency.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo announced the move in a tweet Monday, the first day that world leaders
could begin the one-year withdrawal process:
In response, Alden Meyer,
director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and
a leading expert on the United Nations' international climate negotiations
process, warned that "President Trump's decision to walk away from the
Paris agreement is irresponsible and shortsighted. All too many people are already
experiencing the costly and harmful impacts of climate change in the form of
rising seas, more intense hurricanes and wildfires, and record-breaking
temperatures."
The primary goal of
the Paris accord is to "strengthen the global response to the threat of
climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2
degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the
temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius."
Trump announced his
intention to abandon the agreement, which was backed by the Obama
administration, in a June 2017 speech. In the two years since, every nation on
earth has
pledged support for the accord, which went into effect on Nov. 4,
2016. No country was allowed to withdraw for three years.
The Trump administration was
required to send a
letter to the United Nations to begin the withdrawal process. U.S. State
Department spokesperson James Dewey had told The
Associated Press Friday that "the U.S. position with respect to the
Paris agreement has not changed. The United States intends to withdraw from the
Paris agreement."
"The total retreat by
President Trump and his administration in the global fight against climate
change is the definition of betrayal," declared Environmental
Working Group president Ken Cook. "The U.S. and the world are rapidly
running out of time to stave off the worst impacts of climate disruption, while
the president is actively working to speed up our collision with the biggest
existential threat facing every American."
Ahead of the administration's
letter on Monday, Jean Su, energy director with the Center for Biological
Diversity's (CBD) Climate Law Institute, said in
a statement that "Trump can run from the Paris agreement, but he can't
hide from the climate crisis."
"The silver lining is,
Trump's Paris withdrawal will give the global community a break from his
bullying support for fossil fuels," said Su. "But the next president
will need to rejoin the accord immediately and commit to the rapid, wholescale
clean-energy transformation the climate emergency demands."
The yearlong process means the
U.S. withdrawal would take effect after the next presidential election—meaning
that if someone other than Trump wins the White House in 2020, that president
could return to the deal within 30 days.
"America is the number
one historical contributor to the climate emergency wreaking havoc in burning
California, the flooded Southeast, and the rest of the world," Su added.
"The next president must repay this extraordinary climate debt by rapidly
moving America to 100 percent clean energy and financing the decarbonization of
the Global South."
Karen Orenstein, Friends of
the Earth's deputy director of economic policy, concurred in a statement
Monday.
"World leaders must not
wait for Trump, and must not use his moral bankruptcy as an excuse for
inaction," she said. "The rest of the world must implement the Paris
agreement without the United States."
"However, rich countries
must take the threat caused by climate change far more seriously and make their
mitigation and climate finance commitments commensurate with what climate
science and justice demand," Orenstein added. "When the U.S. has more
sane leadership and rejoins the international community, the Paris agreement
needs to be substantially more equitable and ambitious."
With the administration's
withdrawal, "Donald Trump is sending a signal to the world that there will
be no leadership from the U.S. federal government on the climate crisis—a
catastrophic message in a moment of great urgency," 350.org executive
director May Boeve said Monday.
The group's North America
director, Tamara Toles O'Laughlin, said that "Trump is torching our future
so fossil fuel billionaires can pull a profit while the rest of us pay the
price."
"When Trump first said
he'd quit Paris, our message was for elected officials and decision-makers to
pledge 'we are still in,' and double down on commitments for climate
action," she added. "That's still our expectation of all global
officials: to heed demands of the people for transformative climate
action."
Given the Trump
administration's intentions for this particular deal and broader record on
climate issues, O'Laughlin emphasized the importance of state and city
governments in the United States taking action "beyond the commitments of
the Paris agreement," which some activists and experts criticize for not
being bold enough.
Trump and his appointees
have worked
tirelessly to roll back and weaken key environmental and climate
policies implemented by his predecessors. Meanwhile, said Boeve, "a
majority of people in the United States understand the need to address this
crisis head-on."
"There's dangerous
regression from the Trump administration," she explained, "but there
is plenty of leadership everywhere else: young people leading with great
courage; the 7.6 million people who joined the Global Climate Strikes; wise investors
shifting trillions of dollars out of coal, oil, gas companies; liability in
courtrooms, and tribunals as the likes of Exxon are called to pay for the harm
they've caused; and more. The moral outrage at this decision will be a powerful
catalyst for action."
Youth-led climate strikes in
September bookended the U.N.
Climate Action Summit in New York City. Campaigners are
organizing another pair of strikes for Nov. 29 and Dec. 6, timed to
line up with COP25. At the global climate conference—which was recently moved
from Santiago,
Chile to Madrid,
Spain—world leaders will discuss their commitments under the Paris accord.
Katie Eder is the 19-year-old
executive director of Future Coalition, one of the youth groups involved with
planning the climate strikes.
"Trump has made it clear
that he is going to continue to put the wants of large corporations and fossil
fuel executives above the lives and futures of our generation," Eder said Monday.
"We're asking that elected officials at all levels maintain commitments to
the Paris climate agreement and end the fossil fuel era once and for all. We
will continue to strike, rally, and march so that elected officials hear that
message. And come November, if they don't listen, we are prepared to vote them
out."
Before the September strikes,
the Youth Climate Strike Coalition released its
five policy demands: respect for Indigenous land, environmental justice,
protecting biodiversity, the implementation of sustainable agriculture, and a
Green New Deal.
"The demand for climate
action cannot be ignored, and Trump's neglect of the will of the people won't
change that," concluded Toles O'Laughlin of 350.org. "Beyond the
Paris climate agreement, we're not going to stop until we get a Green New Deal
that ends fossil fuels and makes the industry pay for care and repair,
prioritizing frontline communities and workers in the transition."
Meyer of UCS noted that
"fortunately, no other country is following President Trump out the door
on Paris, and here at home, states, cities, and businesses representing more
than half of the U.S. GDP and population have committed to take action to meet
the Paris agreement's goals."
"Unlike the
president," he said, "these leaders understand that reducing
emissions creates jobs and protects local communities, while it is inaction on
climate that poses the real threat to prosperity."
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