Donald Trump withdraws the United States from the Paris Accord – VIDEO

U.S. President Donald Trump announced the complete withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement.

UPDATE: “We’re getting out,” Trump said at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden in which he decried the Paris accord’s “draconian” financial and economic burdens.

“In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord,” Trump said. But he added that the United States would begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris accord or “a new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.” ”And if we can, that’s great, and if we can’t, that’s fine”, he added.

Paris Accord cannot be renegotiated, say France, Italy and Germany

“The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries”.

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He also said that the Paris Agreement is “very unfair” for the American economy, because it means lower wages, lost jobs, shuttered factories, and “vastly diminished economic production”, while China can build more coal plants.

U.S. President also said that under his administration U.S. will continue to be “the cleanest country in the world”.

“We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us any more. And they won’t be,” Trump added.

“In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord,” Trump said.

”Our president is choosing to put American jobs and American consumers first. Our president is choosing to put the American energy and American industry first,” said U.S. Vice President Mike Pence before Trump’s statement.

UPDATE: President Donald Trump will announce on Thursday that the United States will withdraw from the landmark Paris climate agreement, following through on a pledge he made during the presidential campaign, according to a White House document seen by Reuters.

Trump will say the Paris agreement “front loads costs on American people,” the document said. He will say the decision fulfills his promise to “put American workers first,” it said. He will also say he hopes to seek “a better deal,” the document said.

Trump was scheduled to make the official announcement at 3 p.m. (1900 GMT) in the White House Rose Garden.

”I will be announcing my decision on Paris Accord, Thursday at 3:00 P.M. The White House Rose Garden,” U.S. President wrote on his Twitter account, 12 hours after he specified that will make a statement on this matter ”over the next few days”.

The announcement comes a day after Axios news outlet reported, citing two unidentified sources with direct knowledge of the decision, that Donald Trump has decided to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.

UPDATE: The White House remained tight-lipped about Trump’s decision. “The president has listened to people from all sides and ultimately he’s going to make the best decision for … the American worker,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday Trump was favoring an exit and was working out terms of the planned withdrawal with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, an oil industry ally and climate change doubter. The source said any withdrawal announced by Trump could have conditions or caveats that were under discussion.

The Vatican, which under Pope Francis’ insistence has strongly backed the accord, would see a U.S. exit as disaster and “a huge slap in the face,” Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, a senior Vatican official, told the Rome newspaper La Repubblica.

At their meeting last month, the pope gave Trump a signed copy of his 2015 encyclical letter calling for protecting the environment from the effects of climate change and backed scientific evidence that it is caused by human activity.

U.S. supporters of the pact said any pullout by Trump would represent an abdication of American leadership on a leading issue of our time and would show that the United States cannot be trusted to follow through on international commitments.

The pact was the first legally binding global deal to fight climate change. Virtually every nation voluntarily committed to steps aimed at curbing global emissions of “greenhouse” gases. These include carbon dioxide generated from burning of fossil fuels that scientists blame for a warming planet, sea level rise, droughts and more frequent violent storms.

Scientists have said a U.S. withdrawal from the deal could speed up the effects of global climate change, leading to heat waves, floods, droughts and more frequent violent storms.

During the campaign, Trump said the accord would cost the U.S. economy trillions of dollars with no tangible benefit. Trump has expressed doubts about climate change, at times calling it a hoax to weaken U.S. industry

Under pressure

Since taking office, he has come under pressure from some advisers, close U.S. allies, corporate CEOs, Democrats and some fellow Republicans to keep the United States in the accord.

The United States, exceeded only by China in greenhouse gas emissions, accounts for more than 15 percent of the worldwide total.

Last year was the warmest since records began in the 19th century, as global average temperatures continued a rise dating back decades that leading climate scientists attribute to man-made greenhouse gas emissions that trap heat in the atmosphere.

In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who pressed Trump to stay in the pact last week at a meeting of the G7 industrialized nations, on Thursday described the accord as essential and said she was pleased many other governments agreed.

Merkel met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, and they pledged to continue fighting climate change.

China, which overtook the United States as the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in 2007, and the European Union will seek on Friday to save the Paris agreement, with Li meeting top EU officials in Brussels.

In a statement backed by all 28 EU states, the EU and China were poised to commit to full implementation of the agreement, officials said.

The European Union is not considering imposing trade sanctions on the United States if Trump withdraws, EU Climate and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said in Copenhagen.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tweeted on Thursday, “Climate action is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do.”

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia attaches great significance to the accord, and “the effectiveness of this convention is likely to be reduced without its key participants.”

Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine, whose Pacific island nation already is grappling with rising sea levels, expressed disappointment with Trump’s expected move but applauded other countries for redoubling their commitments.

“My country’s survival depends on every country delivering on the promises they made in Paris – our own commitment to it will never waver,” Heine said in a statement.

Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday, in the Oval Office, that he had been hearing from people on both sides of the issue, but he declined to indicate whether he had made up his mind.

“I’m hearing from a lot of people, both ways. Both ways,” Trump said.

I will be announcing my decision on Paris Accord, Thursday at 3:00 P.M. The White House Rose Garden. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2017

I will be announcing my decision on the Paris Accord over the next few days. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017

White House spokesman Sean Spicer declined yesterday to say whether President Donald Trump has decided to withdraw from the Paris Accord to fight climate change, despite reports indicating that he would pull out of the global deal.

“When the president has a decision, he’ll make that announcement and he’ll make it clear what the basis of that is,” Spicer said.

A source who was briefed on the decision told Reuters, on Wednesday, that Trump has decided to follow through on a campaign pledge to pull the United States out of a global pact to fight climate change, a move that should rally his support base at home while deepening a rift with U.S. allies abroad.

The decision will put the United States in league with Syria and Nicaragua as the world’s only non-participants in the Paris Climate Accord. It could have sweeping implications for the deal, which relies heavily on the commitment of big polluter nations to reduce emissions of gases scientists blame for sea level rise, droughts and more frequent violent storms.

Trump who has previously called global warming a hoax, refused to endorse the landmark climate change accord at a summit of the G7 group of wealthy nations on Saturday, saying he needed more time to decide. Then, G7 leaders said in their final communique on Saturday that they had failed to bridge differences over climate change, with the United States unable to join other countries in committing to the Paris Agreement.

Fox News also cited an unidentified source confirming the pullout.

The accord, agreed on by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015, aims to limit planetary warming in part by slashing carbon dioxide and other emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Under the pact, the United States committed to reducing its emissions by 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.

Axios said details of the pullout are being worked out by a team that includes EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. The choice is between a formal withdrawal that could take three years or leaving the U.N. treaty that the accord is based on, which would be quicker but more extreme, according to Axios.

The decision to withdraw from the climate accord was influenced by a letter from 22 Republican U.S. senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, calling for an exit, Axios reported.

The United States is the world’s second-biggest carbon dioxide emitter behind China.

Supporters of the climate pact are concerned that a U.S. exit could lead other nations to weaken their commitments or also withdraw, softening an accord that scientists have said is critical to avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.

Still, Canada, the European Union, and China have said they will honor their commitments to the pact even if the United States withdraws. India had also indicated it would stick by the deal.

Trump had vowed during his campaign to “cancel” the Paris deal within 100 days of becoming president, as part of an effort to bolster U.S. oil and coal industries. That promise helped rally supporters sharing his skepticism of global efforts to police U.S. carbon emissions.

After taking office, however, Trump faced pressure to stay in the deal from investors, international powers and business leaders, including some in the coal industry. He also had to navigate a split among his advisers on the issue.

Trump aides including Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, lawyer Don McGahn and Peter Navarro, along with EPA chief Pruitt, argued hard for leaving the accord. They said the deal would require the U.S. government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, which would hurt business.

Trump’s administration has already begun the process of killing Obama-era climate regulations.

The “stay-in” camp, which included Trump’s daughter Ivanka, chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, had argued the United States could reduce its voluntary emission cuts targets while still keeping a voice within the accord.

Big investors urge Trump to stick with Paris climate accord

Oil majors Shell and Exxon Mobil have also supported the Paris pact, along with a number of Republican lawmakers. Several big coal companies, including Cloud Peak Energy, had publicly urged Trump to stay in the deal as a way to help protect the industry’s mining interests overseas, though others asked Trump to exit the accord to help ease regulatory pressures on domestic miners.

Trump has repeatedly expressed doubts about climate change, at times calling it a hoax to weaken U.S. industry. An overwhelming majority of scientists, however, say climate change is driven by human use of fossil fuels.

”Leaving the Paris climate deal will take the U.S. years. Trump doesn’t know the details”

Europe must make clear to the United States that quitting the Paris climate agreement is not a straightforward process, and that fully leaving the deal will take years, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Wednesday.

“Europe’s duty is to say: it’s not like that,” Juncker told a student conference on the future of Europe organised by the German employers’ association BDA. “The Americans can’t just leave the climate protection agreement. Mr. Trump believes that because he doesn’t know the details.”

In reality, it would take several years for the U.S. to extricate itself from the obligations that flow from having signed the agreement, the head of the European Union’s executive arm added.