An executive order signed Monday by President Donald Trump, one of his first actions since taking office, states that the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
As part of the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement, signatories committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions annually in order to prevent global temperatures from increasing by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels. Participating countries, including the United States, have also committed billions of dollars to funds that help developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change in recent years.
In the directive, the White House stated that these agreements direct American taxpayer cash to nations that do not need or deserve aid in the best interests of the American people.
According to the directive, a written notification of the withdrawal will be sent by the U.S. ambassador to the UN.
“The United States will consider its withdrawal from the Agreement and any attendant obligations to be effective immediately upon this provision of notification,” the amended order stated.
Along with Yemen, Iran, and Libya, the United States will be excluded from the Paris Agreement. Some analysts worry that other countries would follow suit and that the United States might be giving up significant influence over global climate policy if it withdraws from the global climate action stage.
Climate organizations swiftly denounced the action.
In an email statement to NBC News, Rachel Cleetus, the policy director of the Climate and Energy program of the Union of Concerned Scientists, called the decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement a “travesty.” This is just another example of President Trump’s anti-science and fossil fuel-driven agenda, which aims to increase polluting industries’ profits at the expense of the health and welfare of people nationwide.
The president’s directive is in response to the world’s ongoing release of historic amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which has increased global temperatures and made extreme weather in the United States and other countries worse. Climate change has frequently been linked to destructive and fatal flooding, hurricanes, and wildfires because rising temperatures influence precipitation patterns and storm dynamics.
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