On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would end its participation in the Paris Agreement, the 2015 accord that called for governments to work to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.
Trump called the voluntary agreement “draconian” and painted it as a net loss for the United States in regard to the country’s standing on the international stage.
“It would once have been unthinkable that an international agreement could prevent the United States from conducting its own domestic affairs,” he said.
In 2012, Trump stated he believed “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese…” Both Trump and EPA head Scott Pruitt were closed-lipped in regards to the president’s current beliefs after the announcement that the United States would leave the Paris accord.
“Exiting Paris does not mean disengagement,” Pruitt said to reporters at the White House on June 2. He criticized “climate exaggerators,” but said that he does believe human activity contributes to global warming, although “measuring with precision, from my perspective, the degree of human contribution is very challenging.”
Only two countries did not join the Paris Agreement when it was first signed: Syria and Nicaragua. The latter established its own pledge to run on 90 percent renewable energy by 2020, stating that the Paris Agreement’s goals were not ambitious enough.
Silicon Valley execs expressed almost universal concern about the economic and moral consequences of the decision.
Some states have taken matters into their own hands. On June 1, the governors of New York, California, and Washington formed the United States Climate Alliance, a coalition dedicated to continuing to meet the Paris Agreement’s goals.
A recent article from the San Francisco Chronicle on June 4 argued that clean energy has made too much of an impact on the United States economy for the country to go back to traditional models, even without government support. The United States Department of Energy said last week that more people are now employed in solar power than in coal, oil, and gas combined, and that number is growing.
“Among the reasons cited for leaving the Paris Agreement, President Trump indicated that reducing emissions will increase household costs and result in lost jobs. However, over the past decade, the U.S. has made significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions while keeping household spending on energy low and supporting a vast American workforce,” Business Council for Sustainable Energy President Lisa Jacobson said. “In fact, household spending on energy as a proportion of total household spending is currently at the lowest it has been since the records began in 1959, and jobs in clean energy sectors are growing, with clean energy industries supporting over 3 million American jobs.”
The legal procedures required to lead the agreement mean that the United States will not be able to officially disengage until 2020.
