03 June, 2017
The decision was a sweeping step that fulfills a campaign promise while acutely dampening global efforts to curb global warming. Trump faced criticism last week after he appeared to push aside the prime minister of Montenegro in order to move to the front of a group of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation leaders.
A top atmospheric scientist at the U.N.'s weather agency said Friday that the "worst-case scenario" caused by the planned USA pullout from the Paris climate deal would be a further 0.3-degree Celsius (0.5 Fahrenheit) rise in global temperatures by 2100.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, already a high-profile Trump critic, once again blasted the President.
"While the U.S. decision is disheartening, we remain inspired by the growing momentum around the world to combat climate change and transition to clean growth economies", said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The U.S. decision is "deeply regrettable, and by that I am really measuring myself", Merkel told reporters.
"In Berlin, Greenpeace activists projected Trump's silhouette onto the side of the USA embassy along with the words ".TotalLoser, so sad!"
Anticipating a possible US pullout, officials from China and the European Union - two of the world's major polluters - have prepared a declaration reaffirming their commitment to the 2015 Paris Agreement, which is widely considered a landmark deal for bringing together nearly all countries under a common goal.
Referring to "the latest unfortunate decisions of the new administration", Tusk said that the European Union and China had "demonstrated solidarity with future generations".
A spokesman for Peabody Energy Corp, America's largest publicly traded coal miner, had said on Wednesday that the company would support a decision by Trump to withdraw from the Paris deal because the "accord is flawed on a number of levels".
Speaking in Berlin a day earlier, Premier Li said China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, would stick to its commitment to fight climate change. In the African country of Mali, many see global warming as the reason for a protracted drought.
It's a bitter blow to stalwart European partners who launched an aggressive campaign to convince Trump that American leadership is central to combating climate change.
On Thursday, Donald Trump announced he was taking the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, which it had entered in 2015 under Barack Obama.
Poor countries are predicted to be among the hardest hit by global warming, with some foreseeing tens of millions of "climate refugees" in coming decades.
Frank Rijsberman, Director-General of Seoul based Global Green Growth Institute expected worldwide funding for investment needed to fight climate change would suffer, noting a $1 billion reduction in USA funding the Green Climate Fund in South Korea.
European heavyweights France, Germany and Italy said in a joint statement on Thursday that they regretted Trump's decision to withdraw from the accord, while affirming their "strongest commitment" to implement its measures. "This (decision) is an accident our planet had been made to suffer, but it should be used to raise global awareness", he said. Syria and Nicaragua are the only other non-participants in the accord, signed by 195 nations in Paris in 2015.
For anxious allies, Trump's rejection of the Paris pact is particularly jarring in the wake of his first global trip last week.
She shrugged off Trump's remark that he was elected to represent the people of Pittsburgh, not Paris.
"We don't want other countries laughing at us anymore and they won't", Trump declared. Moreover, Trump last week refused to indicate his support at G7 for the Paris deal.
He joked that Trump's move made him a convenient person to blame for any bad weather, including wet snow in Moscow on Friday.
"Now we can dump it all on him and American imperialism", Putin said.
In India, one of the world's fastest growing major economies and a growing contributor to pollution, a top advisor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi vouched for intentions to switch to renewable power generation independent of the Paris accord.
