WASHINGTON: The Trump 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 President Donald Trump to reduce red tape on American 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.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed the step on Monday and pointed out that the United States had trimmed emissions in recent years even as it had grown its energy production.
“The US 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.
The European Union expressed disappointment.
“The withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement means that the rest of us must further increase our cooperation,” Krista Mikkonen, minister of environment for current European Council president Finland said in a statement on Tuesday.
“We will continue to work with US states, cities and civil society in support of climate action.”
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 State Department’s letter to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres starts the clock on a process that will be complete
one day after the 2020 US presidential election.
The Obama administration had signed the United States onto the 2015 pact, promising a 26-28 per cent cut in US greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 from 2005 levels.
Trump campaigned on a promise to rescind that pledge, saying it would hurt the US economy while leaving other big polluters like China to increase emissions. He was bound by UN rules to wait until November 4, 2019, to file exit papers.
Teresa Ribera, Spain’s Environment Minister, said on Twitter that the formal withdrawal — although expected — dealt a blow to the Paris deal. Spain will host the next round of climate negotiations in place of Chile in early December.
“I deeply regret this decision, which, no matter how it was announced, is no less worrying,” she wrote. — Reuters
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