China, EU reaffirm climate pledges after Trump backs away
China says climate pledges under Paris Agreement unchanged • Trump starts undoing Obama’s climate goals in shift to coal
BEIJING/OSLO (Reuters) – Nations led by China and the EU rallied around a global plan to slow climate change on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump began undoing Obama-era plans for deep cuts in US greenhouse-gas emissions.
Trump’s order on Tuesday, keeping a campaign promise to bolster the US coal industry, strikes at the heart of an international Paris Agreement in 2015 to curb world temperatures that hit record highs in 2016 for the third year in a row.
Many nations reacted to Trump’s plan with dismay and defiance, saying a vast investment shift from fossil fuels to clean energy, such as wind and solar power, is under way with benefits ranging from less air pollution to more jobs.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang, whose government cooperated closely with former US president Barack Obama’s administration on climate change, said all countries should “move with the times.”
“No matter how other countries’ policies on climate change, as a responsible, large, developing country, China’s resolve, aims and policy moves in dealing with climate change will not change,” he said.
European Climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said the European Union sees the Paris agreement as a “growth engine” for creating jobs and new investment opportunities.
“Donald Trump’s attempt to turn the US into a Jurassic Park run by dinosaur energy will eventually fail,” said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Trump’s main target is Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which required states to slash carbon emissions from power plants and was key to the US pledge under Paris to cut emissions by between 26% and 28% below 2005 levels by 2025.
Trump did not say whether he would pull out of the Paris Agreement, agreed by almost 200 nations and which seeks a shift from fossil fuels this century as the cornerstone of efforts to limit heat waves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.
The fear is that less action by the United States, the No. 2 greenhouse-gas emitter behind China, will cause other nations to roll back their own goals. The pact has been ratified so far by 141 nations, ranging from Pacific island states to OPEC oil producers.
The Paris Agreement lets each country set domestic targets for restricting greenhouse gases and foresees no sanctions for noncompliance. Trump has sometimes called global warming a hoax but has also said he has an open mind about Paris.
Still, Trump’s row back is likely to undercut a core principle of the Paris Agreement that all national plans, due to be submitted every five years this century, have to be ever stronger and reflect the “highest possible ambition.”
A formal withdrawal from the Paris Agreement could trigger far wider criticisms, perhaps calls for import taxes on US goods.
Laurent Fabius, the former French foreign minister who was an architect of the Paris Agreement, denounced Trump’s moves as “a very serious step backwards.”
German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks warned Washington it could lose out. “A shift into “reverse [gear] now will only hurt themselves in terms of international competitiveness,” she told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily.
In Paris, governments promised to limit a rise in average surface temperatures to “well below” 2°C (3.6° F) above preindustrial times, ideally 1.5.
US greenhouse-gas emissions fell 11% from 2005 to 2015. Bill Hare, head of the Climate Analytics think tank, said they may remain at current levels by 2030 with Trump’s policies.
Trump’s policies could in turn nudge up the global rise in temperatures by about 0.1° C (1.8° F) from a projected 2.8° (5° F) by 2100, based on existing government pledges for action, he said.