US takes first step to become only country outside Paris climate accord
Secretary of state Pompeo boasts of trimmed emissions as defiant US cities, states and officials continue to apply principles of global agreement
The Trump administration said on Monday it filed paperwork to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement, the first formal step in a one-year process to exit the global pact on climate change.
The move is part of a broader strategy by President Donald Trump to reduce red tape on US industry, but comes as scientists and many world governments urge rapid action to avoid the worst effects of global warming.
Once it leaves, the US the top historic greenhouse gas emitter and leading oil and gas producer will become the only country outside the accord.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo confirmed the step on Monday and pointed out that the US has trimmed emissions in recent years even as it has grown its energy production.
“The US is proud of our record as a world leader in reducing all emissions, fostering resilience, growing our economy, and ensuring energy for our citizens,” he said.
The EU expressed disappointment. “The withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement means that the rest of us must further increase our cooperation,” Krista Mikkonen, minister of environment for current European Council president Finland said on Tuesday. “We will continue to work with US states, cities and civil society in support of climate action.”
An official accompanying French President Emmanuel Macron on a state visit to China, said: “We regret this and this only makes the Franco-Chinese partnership on the climate and biodiversity more necessary.”
Macron and Chinese President Xi Jinping will sign a pact on Wednesday that includes a paragraph on the “irreversibility of the Paris Agreement”, he said.
The state department’s letter to UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres starts the clock on a process that will be complete a day after the 2020 US presidential election.
WHILE IT SERVES THE POLITICAL NEEDS OF THE ADMINISTRATION, WE WILL LOSE A LOT OF TRACTION WITH RESPECT TO US INFLUENCE GLOBALLY
All the top Democratic presidential contenders seeking to unseat Trump have promised to re-engage the Paris Agreement if they win. But the withdrawal could leave a lasting mark, said Andrew Light, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute and former adviser to the US climate envoy under Democratic President Barack Obama.
“While it serves the political needs of the administration, we will lose a lot of traction with respect to US influence globally.”
The Obama administration signed the US on to the 2015 pact, promising a 26%-28% cut in US greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 from 2005 levels.
Trump campaigned on a promise to rescind that pledge, saying it would hurt the US economy while leaving big polluters such as China to increase emissions. He was bound by UN rules to wait until November 4 2019 to file exit papers.
Trump has already moved to unwind a slew of Obama-era rules limiting emissions including from the electricity industry, vehicles and the oil and gas drilling sector. A report by US state attorneys-general said those rollbacks could amount to a boost in US carbon emissions of more than 200-million tons a year by 2025.
Teresa Ribera, Spain’s environment minister, said on Twitter that the formal withdrawal although expected dealt a blow to the Paris deal. Spain will host the next round of climate negotiations in place of Chile in early December. “I deeply regret this decision, which, no matter how it was announced, is no less worrying,” she wrote.
Environmental groups also slammed the move.
“The next president will need to rejoin the accord immediately and commit to the rapid, wholesale clean-energy transformation the climate emergency demands,” said Jean Su, energy director with the Center for Biological Diversity.
A report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in 2018 the world had little more than a decade to rapidly reduce emissions from fossil fuels use to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5°C. Beyond that warming threshold, the planet becomes more likely to see dramatic cascading effects of climate change, from sea-level rise to more frequent intense storms, droughts, floods and heatwaves, according to the report.
In the absence of US federal leadership on climate change, several Democratic states and municipal governments have sought to apply their own regulations curbing emissions and promoting renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
Alden Meyer, director of policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said states, cities and businesses representing more than half of the US GDP and population remain committed to the Paris Agreement’s goals.
“Unlike the president, these leaders understand that reducing emissions creates jobs and protects local communities, while it is inaction on climate that poses the real threat to prosperity,” he said.
Until its formal exit, the US will continue to participate in negotiations over technical aspects of the agreement, represented by career state department officials.
The US and China, the world’s two largest carbon emitters, have recently been leading negotiations of the Paris “rule book” that outlines transparency and reporting rules.