USA leaving Paris accord will harm its global influence — United Nations leader

Others say the president is still on the fence. President Donald Trump speaks about the US role in the Paris climate change accord, Thursday, June 1, 2017, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington.

News of Trump's expected decision drew swift reaction from the United Nations.

Reports of the impending move by the American president triggered statements of support for the climate accord from scores of world leaders.

She described the discussion as "very hard, not to say very unsatisfactory".

The mayor said her voters are more optimistic about the future of coal than they've been in years, thanks to Trump.

We are committed to a 100 percent renewable energy future and working to reduce our emissions from city facilities and fleets.

"Some may seek to portray the response to climate change as a fundamental threat to the economy". A spokesman wasn't available to comment on the recent rumors of a pullout by press time. We believe it would be important for the U.S. not to leave the Paris agreement.

"Canada is going to show leadership with China and the European Union and we certainly hope the USA will be joining us", McKenna told The Canadian Press in a recent interview.

The Wyoming Mining Association would be "encouraged" by a withdrawal from the agreement, said its executive director, Travis Deti.

The US is one of more than 140 countries and organisations that have ratified the agreement, but Mr Trump railed against it on the campaign trail saying it was bad for the US economy.

Former Obama aide David Axelrod said "in backing off of climate pact", Trump "is locking arms with Syria and Nicaragua and matching confidently into the past".

Jean-Claude Juncker said that "the Americans can't just get out of the agreement", adding that "it takes three to four years" to pull out. We are seeing new industries.

Wyoming's unofficial stance on climate science is one of pragmatism.

Leaving the deal would fulfil a central campaign pledge, but would anger global allies who spent years in hard negotiations that produced an accord to reduce carbon emissions.

The state's reliance on a stable coal sector has pushed the politics of climate science aside in favor of a practical approach. "We can not phase out fossil fuels overnight".

"As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change puts it: "Human influence on the climate system is clear". Like other conservatives, the senator argues that the deal was reached illegally, without congressional approval. "We have to engage the energy industry and governments to use fossil fuels as cleanly, sparingly and responsibly as possible, while transforming our energy systems".

A formal withdrawal would take years, experts say, a situation that led the president of the European Commission to speak dismissively of Trump on Wednesday.

The emissions goals are voluntary with no real consequences for countries that fail to meet them. The two policies worked in tandem.

He said countries such as China and Canada have and are stepping up and can fill the void left by the U.S.

Even in regions of the US where coal is plentiful, electric utilities are increasingly shifting to cheaper, cleaner-burning natural gas. South Africa's government calls the USA pullout "an abdication of global responsibility". "It's hard to realize how much our environment is changing, but it is".

Since taking office on January 20, Trump has sent contradictory signals on the Paris deal - reflecting the different currents within his administration, both on climate change but also on the wider issue of America's role in the world and its position on multilateralism.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, with his two-year-old granddaughter Isabelle Dobbs-Higginson on his lap and United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon looking on, signs the COP21 Climate Change Agreement on behalf of the United States during a ceremony on Earth Day, April 22, 2016.

Further, the Secretary-General cautioned that failure to act on combating climate change would in turn harm the countries themselves for their inaction.

China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, responsible for nearly 30 per cent of global emissions in 2016 and recently recommitted to its Paris targets.

White House sources characterize Trump as about 95 percent decided on pulling out of the deal, and one source says the motivation behind Wednesday's leak to Axios, which first reported the president was definitely backing out of the Paris accord, may be to force the president into making a decision on this once and for all.