Advertisement – story continues below
Saying the American economy cannot afford the burdens the Paris climate accord would place upon it, President Donald Trump announced Thursday he is pulling the United States out of the agreement.
Trump announced his decision in a White House ceremony.
“We are following through on our commitments, and I don’t want anything to get in our way,” Trump said.
Advertisement – story continues below
“In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord,” Trump announced, adding he would “begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction” under terms he believes are fair to the United States.
“So we’re getting out, but we will start to negotiate and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair,” Trump said, calling the deal the “latest example of Washington entering an agreement that disadvantages the United States for the exclusive benefit of other counties.”
Trump invited Congressional Democrats to join him in developing a version of the Paris agreements that would be a better deal for America.
Advertisement – story continues below
“If the obstructionists want to get together with me, let’s make them non-obstructionists,” Trump said.
The president also said the agreements was praised around the world because the rest of the world fared better under the accord than the United States.
“The Paris agreement handicaps the U.S. economy in order to win praise from the very foreign capitals and global activists that have long sought to gain wealth at our country’s expense. They don’t put America first. I do and I always will,” he said.
“I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” Trump added.
Advertisement – story continues below
Trump was introduced by Vice President Mike Pence, who said in his action, Trump was putting “American jobs and American consumers first.”
“The Paris Accord is a bad deal for Americans, and the president’s action today is keeping his campaign promise to put American workers first,” said a White House statement issued Thursday as Trump was preparing to announce his decision.
“The accord was negotiated poorly by the Obama administration and signed out of desperation. It frontloads costs on the American people to the detriment of our economy while extracting meaningless commitments from the world’s top global emitters, like China. The U.S. is already leading the world in energy production and doesn’t need a bad deal that will harm American workers,” the statement said.
The process of withdrawal will take place over several years. President Barack Obama had formally agreed to the worldwide pact in September.
The statement issued Thursday notes that the United States has already taken significant actions to protect the environment and said those actions can and will continue even without membership in the Paris agreement.
However, according to the White House, a study by NERA Consulting found that meeting the Paris deal’s terms would have cost the U.S. “nearly $3 trillion over the next several decades.”
“By 2040, our economy would lose 6.5 million industrial sector jobs – including 3.1 million manufacturing sector jobs. It would effectively decapitate our coal industry, which now supplies about one-third of our electric power,” the statement said.
Trump said the deal was not fair to America.
“The deal was negotiated badly and extracts meaningless commitments from the world’s top polluters,” the statement said. “The Obama-negotiated accord imposes unrealistic targets on the U.S. for reducing our carbon emissions, while giving countries like China a free pass for years to come. Under the accord, China will actually increase emissions until 2030.”
The statement also noted a hidden cost to American taxpayers.
“President Obama committed $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund — which is about 30 percent of the initial funding — without authorization from Congress. With $20 trillion in debt, the U.S. taxpayers should not be paying to subsidize other countries’ energy needs,” the statement said.
The statement also noted that the agreement does very little for the climate.
“According to researchers at MIT, if all member nations met their obligations, the impact on the climate would be negligible. The impacts have been estimated to be likely to reduce global temperature rise by less than .2 degrees Celsius in 2100,” the statement said.
source http://capitalisthq.com/trump-announces-us-pulling-out-of-paris-climate-accord/
No comments:
Post a Comment