June 01, 2017 ,
The United States is going it alone in walking away from the Paris climate agreement, designed to curb climate change.
The United States is going it alone in walking away from the Paris climate agreement, designed to curb climate change. 
President Trump announced Thursday that he will withdraw the United States from participation in the Paris climate accord, weakening global efforts to combat climate change and siding with conservatives who argued that the landmark 2015 agreement was harming the economy.
DONALD Trump will withdraw the US from the Paris agreement to curb climate change, in a move critics have slammed as “catastrophic” and “reckless”.

This puts the US at odds with 194 countries — including Australia — that signed up to the deal in 2015, which is designed to slow global warming and rising sea levels.

Former US president Barack Obama was quick to slam the decision, as did former vice president Al Gore, who said the withdrawal was “reckless and indefensible”.

CNN columnist John D Sutter categorised the pullout as “catastrophic both for this country and the planet”.

German news magazine Der Spiegel tweeted an image of its cover with the headline, “The end of the world as we know it” and the caption “America first! Earth last!”

The front page of the New York Daily News was equally direct.


The announcement, made Thursday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden, fulfils Mr Trump’s election promise to pull out of the pact, which he has described as a job killer.

“As of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country,” Mr Trump said.

“So we’re getting out but we’ll start to negotiate and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine,” he said.
US President Donald Trump announces his decision on the Paris Climate Accord in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC.
US President Donald Trump announces his decision on the Paris Climate Accord in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC.
Mr Trump suggested that other nations were “laughing” at America and that the accord was “about other countries gaining an advantage over the United States”.

“At what point does America get demeaned? At what point do they start laughing at us as a country?” Mr Trump said.

“We want fair treatment for its citizens and we want fair treatment for our taxpayers.

“We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore, and they won’t be, they won’t be.

“I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburg, not Paris.”

But the Mayor of Pittsburg has shot back on Twitter, slamming Trump’s decision.

Mr Trump’s announcement was met with applause from the crowd of supporters gathered in the Rose Garden.

The President said the US would endeavour to either re-enter the Paris accord or propose a new deal “on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers”.

“As President, I can put no other consideration before the wellbeing of American citizens,” he said.

“The Paris climate agreement is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers — who I love — and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories and vastly diminished economic production.”

The decision means the US will pull out of the Green Climate Fund, which Mr Trump said cost the country “a vast fortune”.

Citing a study by the National Economic Research Associates (NERA), the President said compliance with the existing deal would cost the US as many as 2.7 million jobs by 2025.

He said the agreement would “decimate” the coal, steel and car manufacturing industries.

Mr Trump stressed that he “cares deeply” about the environment. “Not only does this deal subject our citizens to harsh economic restrictions, it fails to live up to our environmental ideals,” he said.

“As someone who cares deeply about the environment, which I do, I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States — the world’s leader in environmental protection — while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters.”

Mr Trump said China had been given a free pass to increase its carbon emissions for a “staggering” 13 years.

Mr Obama said the withdrawal meant the Trump administration had made the US one of “a small handful of nations that reject the future”.

“I’m confident that our states, cities and businesses will step up and do even more to lead the way and help protect for future generations the one planet we’ve got,” he said in a statement.

Mr Gore, who starred in the climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, said the decision “undermines America’s standing in the world and threatens to damage humanity’s ability to solve the climate crisis in time”.

Even oil companies have voiced opposition to pulling out of the agreement, with Exxon Mobil Corp and ConocoPhillips arguing that the US is better off with a seat at the table so it can influence global efforts to curb emissions, Bloomberg reports.

Weather.com mocked the President today with sarcastic headlines splashed across its homepage. “Hmm, I did not see a forecast for shade when I checked the Weather Channel app this morning. Yet here it is,” tweeted Politico senior editor Alex Weprin.
Mr Trump has argued behind closed doors in Washington that the Paris accord was a bad deal for America and was poorly negotiated by the Obama administration.

Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg said he had spokem to Malcolm Turnbull, who is in Singapore, following the announcement, and Australia remains committed to the agreement.

“Donald Trump’s announcement today is obviously very significant but Australia will carry on because as our prime minister has made very clear, when we sign up to international agreements ...we will follow through,” Mr Frydenberg told the ABC today.

Before Mr Trump’s official position was made public, Mr Turnbull confirmed that Australia would stick to its targets.

“When Australia makes a commitment to a global agreement, we follow through and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” the Prime Minister told Parliament.

Critics have argued that Mr Trump’s decision amounts to the US shirking its responsibility as the leader of the free world.

The withdrawal puts the US in a dubious club with Nicaragua and Syria as the only countries to reject the agreement.