President Donald Trump will pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, according to an executive order he signed Monday as one of his first acts after he took office.
Under the Paris Agreement, signed in 2016, participating nations vowed to work together to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by making yearly pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years, participating nations, including the United States, have also pledged billions of dollars to funds that assist developing nations with climate adaptation and mitigation.
“In recent years, the United States has purported to join international agreements and initiatives that do not reflect our country’s values or our contributions to the pursuit of economic and environmental objectives,” the White House said in the order . “Moreover, these agreements steer American taxpayer dollars to countries that do not require, or merit, financial assistance in the interests of the American people.”
The order said the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations will submit a written notification of the withdrawal.
“The United States will consider its withdrawal from the Agreement and any attendant obligations to be effective immediately upon this provision of notification,” it added.
The United States will join Libya, Yemen and Iran as nations that are not part of the Paris Agreement. As the United States exits the global stage of climate action, some experts are concerned that other nations may follow suit and that the United States may be ceding important input on international climate policy.
Climate groups immediately condemned the move.
“Pulling out of the Paris Agreement is a travesty,” Rachel Cleetus, the policy director of the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in an email statement. “It’s one more instance of President Trump’s anti-science and fossil-fueled agenda, aimed at boosting the profits of polluting companies at the expense of the health and well-being of people across the nation.”
The world continues to release unprecedented amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, raising global temperatures, which in turn have worsened extreme weather in the United States and around the world. Destructive and deadly flooding, hurricanes and wildfires have repeatedly been connected to climate change as warming temperatures alter precipitation patterns and storm dynamics.
The United States is responsible for 20% of all cumulative greenhouse gas emissions — the largest share of human emissions since the industrial revolution ended in 1850, according to an analysis of historical data by the U.K.-based climate publication Carbon Brief. Since 2005, China has ranked as the top emitter — followed by the United States, then India, according to data from the environment data platform Climate Watch.
“As the world’s most powerful nation and its largest historic emitter, we have a duty to lead the world by example in reducing emissions,” Ben Jealous, the executive director of the Sierra Club, said in a statement. “As a country and a people committed to protecting this and all future generations, we also have a deep moral obligation to act as boldly as possible to do all we can to stave off the very worst of the climate crisis.”
Last year was the hottest on record and the first to exceed the Paris target of 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels, though experts cautioned that one or more individual years exceeding 1.5 C does not mean that meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement is no longer possible.
Trump is expected to roll back a variety of climate efforts put in place by the Biden administration, such as more stringent emissions limits for power plants, tailpipe emissions cuts for new vehicles designed to aid the transition to electric vehicles and a ban on offshore drilling in 625 million acres of ocean waters. In another sweeping statement Monday, Trump vowed to “unleash American energy” and end Biden’s policies of “climate extremism.”
In a first, Trump promised to declare a “national energy emergency,” and in a separate executive order he told the heads of executive offices and federal agencies to “eliminate harmful, coercive ‘climate’ policies that increase the costs of food and fuel.”
