The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Today’s the day Trump could exit Paris climate pact
The initial requirement for members to remain for 3 years is expiring.
WASHINGTON — For more than two years, President Donald Trump has talked about pulling the United States out of the landmark Paris climate agreement. Starting today he finally can do something about it. Even then, though, the withdrawal process takes a year and wouldn’t become official until at least the day after the 2020 presidential election.
What’s happening
In the Paris agreement, nearly 200 countries set their own national targets for reducing or controlling pollution of heat-trapping gases. It was negotiated in 2015 with lots of prodding by the United States and China and went into effect Nov. 4, 2016.
The terms of the deal say no country can withdraw in the first three years, so today is the first time the U.S. could actually start the withdrawal process, which begins with a letter to the United Nations. And it doesn’t become official for a year after that, which leads to the day after the 2020 presidential election. If someone other than Trump wins in 2020, the next president could get back in the deal in just 30 days and plan to cut carbon pollution, said Andrew Light, a former Obama State Department climate negotiator now at the nonprofit World Resources Institute.
Why it matters
The United States is the world’s second-biggest climate polluter and world’s largest economy. The burning of coal, oil and gas has warmed the world by 1.8 degrees
Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, caused massive melting of ice globally, triggered weather extremes and changed ocean chemistry.
“Global objectives can’t be met unless everybody does their part,” said Appalachian State University environmental sciences professor Gregg Marland, who is part of a global effort to track carbon dioxide emissions. “We’re the second-biggest player. What happens to the game if we take our ball and go home?”
Trump has been promising to pull out of the Paris deal since 2017, and in October he called it a massive wealth transfer from America to other nations and said it was one-sided. That’s not the case, experts have said, pointing out that the Paris agreement is voluntary and that the European Union and other nations set higher goals than the United States for cutting carbon pollution.
What’s next
Asked what the U.S. plans next, State Department spokesman James Dewey said in an email only this: “The U.S. position with respect to the Paris Agreement has not changed. The United States intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.”
The agreement set goals of preventing another 0.9 degrees to 1.8 degrees of warming from current levels, but the pledges made in 2015 weren’t enough to prevent that. The deal calls for nations to come up with more ambitious pollution cuts every five years, starting in November 2020 at a meeting in Scotland.