Trump WILL Leave Paris Climate Agreement, White House confirms

Macy Hall

---

Donald Trump had vowed to leave the Paris Climate Agreement, The White House has confirmed.

The US President declaration is part of a wider agenda to boost oil and gas production and to ‘drill baby drill’, MailOnline reports.

The Republican leader previously pulled the US from the Paris deal when he was first in office, with the process taking years and eventually being reversed by Joe Biden in 2021.

Now, Trump has signed an executive order titled ‘Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements, with the country’s withdrawal is likely to take less time, with some predicting it could be as little as a year.

The withdrawal will omit the US from having to adhere to any commitments previously made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

WHAT IS THE PARIS AGREEMENT?

The core aim of the Paris Agreement is to limit the impact of climate change on global temperatures, as countries must ensure the temperature increase doesn’t rise above 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

As described by the UNFCCC, the Paris Agreement is a ‘legally binding international treaty on climate change.’

It was adopted by 196 countries at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in late 2015, coming into force a year later.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has recently warned of more extreme weather, such as heatwaves and droughts, if countries fail to meet the target.

Currently, United States is the world’s leading producer of oil and natural gas thanks to a years-long fracking technology in areas like Texas and New Mexico,

WHAT MOTIVATES TRUMP’S WITHDRAWAL?

Trump’s has argued that the Paris Agreement places an unfair financial burden on the US and American taxpayers.

He also contended the agreement’s core values do not reflect the US’s “values or contributions to the pursuit of economic and environmental objectives,” according to the BBC.

Alongside the withdrawal, Trump’s administration released a statement on “mak[ing] America affordable and energy dominant again.”

It includes steps the White House intends to undo in what Trump has described as former US President Biden’s “climate extremism.”

These include:

• Streamlining changes to rules on energy production, namely mining and non-fuel minerals.
• Declaring a national energy emergency.
• End the leases of wind farms.

President Trump has also promised that, with the USA’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the country will see a start of oil and gas exploration.

WHAT DOES THE USA’S WITHDRAWAL MEAN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE EFFORTS?

Around the world, scientists have been commenting on what the impact of the USA’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement might look like.

Dr Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at Imperial College London’s Centre for Environmental Policy, told the Sciene Media Centre: “Climate change is already making life more difficult for people in America, and around the world.

‘With every fraction of a degree of warming, extreme weather events will intensify and impact basic human rights, like the right to food, housing, work, and medical care

He added: ‘Moving away from fossil fuels and limiting warming to the Paris Agreement will make the world safer, healthier, and more equal.

Two weeks following Trump’s victory in the USA elections, COP29 talks were held in Azerbaijan.

According to Politico, the new White House cabinet has emboldened the countries that mass produce oil, gas, and coal, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, as well as making the future more difficult to the countries most at risk of climate change.

“We’ve seen decisions becoming more and more difficult to take, not in the least because countries like Saudi Arabia feel increasingly threatened and they don’t really care what the rest of the world thinks of them,” a Northern European diplomat told the publication.

So we will lose a strong diplomatic partner, but even with that partner, it was always going to be a very difficult period for us.”

READ NEXT

• Empoword Explains: US Election Results

• Trump Signs Orders to Dismantle DEI Measures

• Empoword Explains: What To Expect From Trump’s Second Term