Tuesday, January 21, 2025 - US President Donald Trump has pulled his nation from the Paris climate agreement for a second time.
The decision was one of a raft of executive orders signed by Trump
on Monday after being sworn in as the 47th president of the United
States.
Trump signed the orders in front of supporters at the Capital One Arena
in Washington.
“I’m immediately withdrawing from the unfair, one-sided Paris climate
accord rip-off,” he said.
“The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes
with impunity.”
The US is the world’s biggest historic emitter of greenhouse gases. The
move means the United States, Iran, Libya and Yemen are now the only countries
in the world outside the 2015 pact.
The Paris Agreement is an international treaty signed by nearly 200
countries in 2015 to limit global temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial
levels.
The pact also seeks to enhance the ability of countries to adapt to
climate change and to provide financial support to developing nations for
mitigation and adaptation efforts.
In 2017, during Trump’s first tenure, he pulled the country out of the
agreement, stating that the pact would “undermine” the US economy and put the
country “at a permanent disadvantage”.
However, due to a clause in the agreement requiring a one-year wait
period for withdrawal to take full effect, it only came into force in 2020 and
was halted in 2021 after former President Joe Biden took office and reversed
the decision.
Trump also vowed to expand the fossil fuel industry with a promise to
“drill, baby, drill”, hence reversing the clean energy efforts of the previous
administration.
The Biden administration had on December 2024 committed to cutting
down emissions by 61 to 66 percent by 2035.
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