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Barack Obama worked furiously to get the accord passed, approved, and to the current stage. Even industrial leaders in the United States have informed Donald Trump that the agreement doesn’t represent a burden, but provides much-needed targets and a sense of certainty about future requirements. European leaders made a desperate effort to persuade Trump of the unprecedented unity and literally life-saving scope represented by the agreement.
So of course …
President Donald Trump is expected to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, CBS News White House Correspondent Major Garrett confirms.
Trump has also talked about “re-negotiating” the agreement, a work that was the result of more than a decade of global meetings, proposals and adjustments. A work which has been signed by 195 UN members and ratified by 147 national governments.
Details on just how exactly the U.S. will be withdrawing are still being worked out by a team that includes EPA administrator Scott Pruitt.
Which is as far from comforting as possible. Pruitt has shown a unique ability to not just be leery of climate change regulation, but to be overtly hostile. working as if his job were to degrade the environment with all possible speed. But then, ditching the accord seems to indicate that Trump is planning to take a position that’s even more aggressively destructive.
It could be a sign that he plans to ditch environmental regulations and attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a much greater degree than he has so far.
What does Trump expect the nation to gain from dropping out of the agreement? That’s not clear. The entire episode seems to represent a case of Trump attacking something good for both America and the world, simply because … who knows? Probably because Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton liked it.
If the report is correct, it will mean Mr Trump has ignored the advice of a string of senior advisers, including his own daughter Ivanka Trump, Defence Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who all advocated keeping 'a seat at the table'.
Even the Pope weighed into the attempt to get Trump to stay in the accord. Staying in makes not only strategic sense for the future, it makes business sense for the nation.
Of the two governments that have not approved the accord, one is Bashir Assad in Syria—who likely frets that the accord would impact his ability to drop poison gas. Now America will get to join him in that exclusive club.
