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Trump Pulls U.S. out of Paris Agreement

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By Shamce Ahmad |Staff Writer|

President Donald Trump and the Office of the White House announced that they will be withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement on June 1.

The Paris Agreement is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that deals with greenhouse gas emission reductions, adaptation and finance towards climate healthy changes starting in the year 2020.

The decision to withdraw from the agreement was largely due to the notion that the carbon reduction targets set by the previous administration were severely hurting the economic climate and job forecasts.

Trump said the deal placed “draconian” financial burdens on the American people.

In his statement at the announcement, Trump mentioned that he was open to re-brokering US carbon reduction commitments, but cast doubt on the ability of other nationxs to agree to a plan that he deems fair to the United States.

“We’re getting out,” he said. “And we will start to renegotiate and we’ll see if there’s a better deal. If we can, great. If we can’t, that’s fine.”

Trump cited that his job was to serve the “people of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” in a testament to his campaigning policy that he will stand up to so-called “bad” deals for the U.S.
 
The backlash to the move has come from around the world, quickly and powerfully. Recently elected president of France Emmanuel Macron took just three minutes to denounce the move.
 
Knowing an American audience would be tuned in, Macron went straight for the national security implications of climate change. “If we do nothing, our children will know a war of migrations, of wars, of shortage. A dangerous world,” the French leader said.
 
The states of California, New York and Washington acted upon their disapproval of the actions of President Trump, by responding with a brand new climate unit called the United States Climate Alliance.
 
The Alliance is led by California Gov. Jerry Brown, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. All three felt strongly in their objection to the withdrawal.
 
“(Trump’s) reckless decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement has devastating repercussions not only for the United States, but for our planet,” said Gov. Cuomo.
 
California on their own has already formally taken action, passing legislation on May 31st, 2017 that mandates California to develop 100 percent of its electricity from renewable resources by 2045.
 
Though there were some supporters of the move. Republican Sen. Rand Paul, of Kentucky, lauded the move, praising Trump for sticking to his agenda.

Paul pointed out that the agreement tasks the United States with reducing its carbon footprint by 20 percent while China is under no environmental obligation for the next 20 years. “It’s just not fair,” he concluded.

The move to pull out of the Paris Agreement will be a prolonged one, as the process to fully be removed will take about four years, and will complete in the same month of the next presidential election, November of 2020.

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