President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Agreement on Monday, hours after he officially entered office.
In front of a large crowd during the inaugural parade, which was moved indoors due to extreme cold, Mr Trump signed an executive order ending US participation in the “unfair, one-sided Paris Climate Accord rip-off”.
“The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity,” he said, claiming that the country had the cleanest air and water during his previous administration.
Mr Trump has also promised to pursue increased US energy independence through a policy summarised by “drill, baby, drill” – or drilling for oil and natural gas at an accelerated rate.
The Paris Agreement, also known as the Paris Accords or Paris Climate Accords, is an international treaty on climate change signed in 2015.
The treaty covers climate change mitigation, adaptation and finance. It is aimed at limiting long-term global temperatures to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
The agreement is voluntary and allows nations to provide targets to cut their own emissions of greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Those targets are supposed to become more stringent over time, with countries facing a February deadline for new individual plans.
Mr Trump has long been a critic of the plan. The Republican President also withdrew from the accords during his first term in office. Joe Biden re-entered the agreement after he took office in 2020.
Iran, Libya and Yemen are the only countries that have not ratified the agreement.
After the announcement, the UN released a statement in which it said: “The last 10 years have been the hottest in recorded history. We have to look no further than Los Angeles to see this human, ecological and economic disaster play out. The collective efforts under the Paris Agreement have made a difference but we need to go much further and faster together.”
It added that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres hoped individual US cities, states and businesses would continue to pursue lowering carbon emissions.
Source: https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/us/2025/01/21/paris-climate-agreement-trump/
