03 June, 2017
Tapping into the "America First" message he used on the election trail, Trump announced the withdrawal on Thursday, saying that participating in the pact would undermine the USA economy, wipe out U.S.jobs, weaken national sovereignty and put his country at a permanent disadvantage to others.
The U.S. decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord has bolstered China's stature and diplomatic power, and could help Beijing achieve longer-term ambitions to upgrade its economy and dominate lucrative new industries. The 82 leaders of cities from Seattle to NY to Arkansas said they represent 39 million Americans. During Trump's speech, the faint sounds of protesters could be heard in the distance banging drums. They held signs and chanted, "What do we want? But we had a good exchange on the difficulty of balancing addressing climate change, responses to climate change, and ensuring that you still have a thriving economy and you can still offer people jobs so they can feed their families and have a prosperous economy".
City Hall, One World Trade Center and the Kosciuszko Bridge were among the buildings adorned in green lights -a public show of support for the 2015 climate agreement, where almost 200 countries agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Mayor de Blasio said City Hall would also light up green.
Citing research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the president said that even total compliance from all the nations involved in the accord-which hopes to limit global warming to 2°C by 2100-would only produce a "two-tenths of 1°Creduction in global temperature by the year 2100".
The deal, signed by former President Barack Obama and the leaders of 195 other nations, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions to combat global warming. But the targets were voluntary, meaning the US and the almost 200 other nations in the agreement could alter their commitments.
In a separate development on Friday, Macron spoke with Pope Francis, "thanking him for. his mobilisation for the Paris Agreement", the presidential office said.
India, a major polluter and a growing economy, has kept mum on whether the US decision will affect Indian energy policy, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi - who is coming to Paris on Saturday to meet Macron - offered no reaction to Trump's decision. "If we can, great".
"I regret the decision of the U.S. president", Merkel said on Thursday evening.
Deon Terblanche of the World Meteorological Organization said the organization hasn't run any new scientific models following Trump's announcement.
According to the study by the Waterfront Alliance, 400,000 New Yorkers face a 50 percent risk of major flooding over the next 40 years.
But this completely ignores the legal process of withdrawing, said Ms Figueres, who served as chief of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change between 2010 to 2016. "So it'll be something that will probably be decided after we get home".
A number of African countries have expressed alarm at rising sea levels and changing weather patterns that have the potential to further disrupt the agriculture that so many on the world's poorest continent rely on to survive. Several of his top aides have opposed the action, too, as has his daughter and adviser, Ivanka Trump.
