06 June, 2017
Former US secretary of state John Kerry, an architect of the Paris climate accord, Sunday blasted President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the agreement to cut carbon emissions. He said that the Paris climate deal doesn't formally go into effect until 2021, which gives nations sufficient time to come up with a constructive solution to fight global warming.
His interpretation was a tiny, tiny bit wrong, according to the MIT professors who authored the research he cited.
"The relevant MIT researchers believe that the Paris agreement is an unprecedented and vital effort by almost 200 countries to respond to the urgent threat of global climate change", MIT said in a statement Thursday evening.
Mr. Trump's tirade against India, whose per capita carbon emission is one-tenth of the USA, comes ahead of a likely visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington later this month.
The funds will support the operations of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, an worldwide environmental treaty that spawned the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris accord and other landmark climate-related policies. "Nike believes that climate change is a serious global threat and that the world will need to radically redesign industrial systems and economies in order to enable a low-carbon growth economy", reads the statement from a Nike spokesperson.
The president announced Thursday from the Rose Garden of the White House that his decision is a "reassertion of America's sovereignty" and called the agreement unfair to us workers, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.
The political leaders join university presidents and companies who also oppose President Trump's decision.
But Dr Powles said the United States withdrawal also raises other questions like whether China will keep its climate funding commitments.
World leaders, health experts, and the majority of Americans support the Paris Agreement, and we all owe it to our planet to pursue the efforts addressed within the agreement.
"Global leadership on climate change is at a critical juncture", he said.
Erwan Monier, a coauthor of the 2015 study and lead scientist at MIT's department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, told the MIT Technology Review that the report didn't include all ensuing commitments from participating countries or look at the continuation of the pledges past 2030.
European leaders have said the Paris accord can not be renegotiated.
So why the hysteria now, since the Paris agreement, like Kyoto, places demands on the developed world, led by the US, that it does not on the developing world, led by China?
"All the discussions we've had for the last several weeks focused on one singular issue: Is Paris good or not for this country?" said Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, during a White House press briefing.
