The administration of President Donald Trump has filed paperwork to withdraw the United States from the United Nations sponsored Paris Agreement, the first formal step in a one-year process to exit the global pact to fight climate change.
The move is part of a broader strategy by President Trump to reduce red tape on American industry, but comes at a time scientist and many world governments urge rapid action to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.
Reuters Newsagency reports once it exits, the United States, the top historic greenhouse gas emitter and leading oil and gas producer, will become the only country outside the accord.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed the step and pointed out that the US had trimmed emissions in recent years even as it had grown its energy production.
“The US is proud of our record as a world leader in reducing all emissions, fostering resilience, growing our economy, and ensuring energy for our citizens,” he said.
The European Union expressed disappointment.
“The withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement means that the rest of us must further increase our cooperation,” Krista Mikkonen, minister of environment for current European Council president Finland said in a statement.
“We will continue to work with US states, cities and civil society in support of climate action.”
An official from the French presidential office accompanying President Emmanuel Macron on a state visit to China, said: “We regret this and this only makes the Franco-Chinese partnership on the climate and biodiversity more necessary.”
President Macron and Chinese President Xi Jinping will sign a pact on Wednesday that includes a paragraph on the “irreversibility of the Paris Agreement,” the official said.
Reuters reports the State Department’s letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres starts the clock on a process that will be complete one day after the 2020 US presidential election.
All the top Democratic presidential contenders seeking to unseat President Trump have promised to re-engage in the Paris Agreement if they win.
However, the withdrawal could leave a lasting mark, said Andrew Light, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute and former adviser to the US climate envoy under Democratic President Barack Obama.
“While it serves the political needs of the Trump administration, we will lose a lot of traction with respect to US influence globally,” he said.
Reuters reports the Obama administration had signed the US onto the 2015 pact, promising a 26 to 28 per cent cut in US greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 from 2005 levels.
President Trump campaigned on a promise to rescind that pledge, saying it would hurt the US economy while leaving other big polluters such as China to increase emissions.
He was bound by UN rules to wait until November 4, to file exit papers.
President Trump has already moved, however, to unwind a slew of Obama-era rules limiting emissions, including from the electricity industry, automobiles and the oil and gas drilling sector.
A report this year by state attorneys general said those rollbacks could amount to a boost in US carbon emissions of more than 200 million tonnes a year by 2025.
Teresa Ribera, Spain’s environment minister, said on Twitter that the formal withdrawal, although expected, dealt a blow to the Paris Agreement.
Spain will host the next round of climate negotiations in place of Chile in early December.
A report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said last year the world had little over a decade to rapidly reduce emissions from fossil fuels use to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Beyond that warming threshold, the planet becomes more likely to see dramatic cascading effects of climate change, from sea-level rise to more frequent intense storms, droughts, floods and heat waves, according to the report.
In the absence of US federal leadership on climate change, several Democratic states and municipal governments have sought to apply their own regulations curbing emissions and promoting renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
Alden Meyer, director of policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said states, cities and businesses representing more than half of the US gross domestic product and population remained committed to the Paris Agreement’s goals.
Until its formal exit, the United States will continue to participate in negotiations over technical aspects of the agreement, represented by career State Department officials.
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