Trump administration to begin official withdrawal from Paris climate accord

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing the formal withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, according to three people briefed on the matter, a long-expected move that nevertheless remains a powerful signal to the world.

The official action sets in motion a withdrawal that still would take a year to complete under the rules of the accord. Abandoning the landmark 2015 agreement in which nearly 200 nations vowed to reduce planet-warming emissions would fulfill one of President Donald Trump’s key campaign promises while placing the world’s largest economy at odds with the rest of the globe on a top international policy priority.

Trump is expected to celebrate leaving the Paris agreement when he speaks at a natural gas conference organized by the

Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry trade group, Wednesday afternoon. The event is in Pittsburgh, a city he specifically referenced when he declared in a 2017 Rose Garden speech his intention to leave the international agreement. At that time, he proclaimed he was elected to represent “the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”

A spokesman for the State Department declined to say whether the agency has drafted its notice to the United Nations that will start the yearlong clock before the United States can officially separate itself from the global effort to curb global warming.

But in a statement the agency said, “The U.S. position on the Paris Agreement has not changed. The United States intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.”

Under the rules of the Paris Agreement, Nov. 4 is the earliest date on which the Trump administration can submit a written notice to the United Nations that it is withdrawing. It would go into effect exactly one year later.