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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Environment
Elle Hunt (now), Sam Levin and Tom McCarthy (earlier)

Paris climate agreement: World reacts as Trump pulls out of global accord – as it happened

Donald Trump: US will withdraw from Paris agreement

Where next for the US and the Paris deal?

Trump framed his decision to pull the US from the landmark Paris climate agreement as “a reassertion of America’s sovereignty”, adding he was “elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”

He said the US could try to re-enter the deal under more favourable terms or work to establish “an entirely new transaction” – but indicated that it would hardly be of high priority. “If we can, great. If we can’t, that’s fine,” he said.

As my colleague David Smith reported earlier, the White House says America will follow the lengthy exit process outlined in the deal, meaning it will remain in the agreement (at least formally) for another three-and-a-half years – taking us right up to the next presidential election in November 2020.

Though the US will remain part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Trump declared: “As of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris accord.”

That includes contributions to the UN Green Climate Fund (to help poorer countries to adapt to climate change and expand clean energy) and reporting on carbon data (though that is required in the US by domestic regulations anyway).

In a joint statement, the leaders of France, Germany and Italy responded to Trump’s decision “with regret”, but said the Paris agreement could not be renegotiated.

The question now becomes what efforts, if any, the US will adopt towards tackling climate change on its own terms – and whether the nearly 200 countries that remain in the deal will amend their own obligations.

The US is the world’s second-largest emitter of carbon, behind only China – which, along with India, was singled out by Trump as being favoured under the Paris deal. But both Beijing and New Delhi have reaffirmed their commitment to meeting their targets.

Trump is currently reviewing major US regulations on power plants and car rules that are aimed at reducing carbon emissions. The US Conference of Mayors, which strongly opposed his decision, said its members would continue efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming at the city and state level.

Speaking of full-page advertisements – one placed in the New York Times in December 2009 has been doing the rounds on Twitter today.

It was signed by business leaders and liberal commentators, lobbying then-president Barack Obama, bound for Copenhagen to forge a global climate pact, to “lead the world by example.

Among them – and the reason why it’s resurfaced – was Donald Trump and his three adult children. More here, from 2016, on Salon. Social media never forgets...

In separate statements and messages on social media, leaders of Apple, Google, Twitter, Amazon, Facebook, Tesla, Microsoft and IBM declared climate change an “urgent” threat that required a global effort to combat.

Microsoft was among more than two dozen companies to publish an open letter urging Trump to remain in the accord as an advertisement in several US newspapers as part of an 11th-hour push on Thursday morning.

Trump’s decision signals the US’ intention to increase emissions, which are already fast approaching the 2C band considered crucial by scientists to prevent serious damage to the planet.

This clock estimates how much greenhouse gas the world is emitting right now – and how much we have left to emit if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change. In just 24 hours, the world will pump out more than 112m tons (CO2-e).

carbon countdown embed

You can embed the clock on your own website as well by using the code from the embed button (that’s the purple one with </> as the symbol).

White House will not say whether Trump denies climate change

The White House has declined to say whether Donald Trump believes human activity contributes to climate change as the president pulled America out of the Paris agreement.

Administration officials were also unable to offer revised US carbon emission targets or say what changes to the global landmark accord would persuade Trump to re-enter it. But they did offer assurance that America will abide by the lengthy exit process outlined in the deal, waiting three-and-a-half years to formally withdraw.

Here’s some Conservative reaction on social media to the US’ withdrawal from the Paris accord – it seems conviction in the unfairness of the deal has only been bolstered by condemnation of Trump’s decision.

Those last few tweets back up Politico’s Matthew Nussbaum’s observation:

In Australia, there has been a lot of talk about Australia’s bipartisan commitment to the Paris Agreement, in the face of US withdrawal. But concretely, what does that mean?

Australia currently has virtually no climate policies at the national level. The Coalition’s Direct Action policy involves paying polluters to pollute less, but that is fraught with problems, since any of those gains are often lost when other polluters pollute more.

And according to the government’s own projections, the current set of policies will lead to Australia’s emissions rising all the way to 2030, and completely miss the targets set at Paris of 26-28% below 2005 levels.

The chart below shows the government’s most recent emissions projections against the targets committed to in Paris.

a chart

The government is poised to release a review of its Direct Action policy. And next week it will receive a review of the functioning of the National Electricity Market, known as the Finkel Review.

Fiji’s prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama says he tried to persuade Trump to stick with the agreement, as nations tackle “the greatest challenge our planet has ever faced.”

Bainimarama says the decision is a grave disappointment for citizens of places like his Pacific island nation and US coastal cities like New York and Miami that are vulnerable to climate change.

He will chair an annual climate summit in Germany in November and says he will do all he can to continue to forge a grand coalition to accelerate the momentum built since the Paris agreement.

Bainimarama says he’s convinced the US government will eventually rejoin the effort.

Trump pulls out of 'Draconian' accord: the response so far

  • Trump announced his decision to renege on the Paris agreement on Thursday, stating that it disadvantaged the US to benefit other countries – read his full speech here, and the annotated version from our environment correspondent here
  • Condemnation of the US’ decision to pull out has come from all corners, ranging from Apple to the Vatican; Al Gore called it “reckless and indefensible” and Hillary Clinton said it was a “historic mistake”
  • France, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, the UK and other world leaders have expressed disappointment with the US but reiterated their resolve to tackling climate change through the Paris accord and other initiatives – more on their reaction here
  • Only the US, Syria and Nicaragua are now not part of the agreement (and Nicaragua resolved not to join because its commitments were not binding)
  • Refugees International, the Elders and the ACLU have been among the groups to warn of the far-reaching impact of climate change on disadvantaged communities and humanitarian crises
  • But some commentators have downplayed the significance or potential impact of the move, suggesting that if the US had no intention of reducing its emissions its commitment to the agreement would have been only symbolic anyway
  • The Empire State building, World Trade Center and City Hall in New York, the Wilson Building in Washington, Boston City Hall, Montreal City Hall and Paris City Hall are among the buildings to have been lit up in green in a show of commitment to action on climate change

India a scapegoat in US' withdrawal?

One of the reasons Trump gave on Thursday for withdrawing from the Paris accord was that it imposed “no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters”, and singled out India as evidence of the fundamental unfairness of the deal:

“India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020. Think of it: India can double their coal production. We’re supposed to get rid of ours.”

Ted Frank, the director of the Center for Classic Action Fairness, was one of many to divert criticism of Trump’s decision towards India:

But as the Guardian’s South Asia correspondent Michael Safi explains, the comparison does not quite stack up:

India’s carbon allowance under the Paris agreement is relatively generous in recognition of the more than 300m Indians still without access to electricity. The country will also need to develop its economy in a carbon-constrained environment, unlike in the west.

But the world’s third-largest carbon pollution emitter is nonetheless on course to exceed the renewable energy targets it set in Paris in 2015 by nearly 50% – and three years ahead of schedule.

Last month saw the wholesale price of wind and solar energy reach record lows in the country, further undercutting the price of coal and spurring international investment in Indian renewables.

Also in May, around 13.7GW of coal projects were cancelled. India’s national energy agency has predicted no new coal plants, other than those already in the pipeline, may be required until at least 2027.

Surveying the toll of fossil-fuelled economic development on its rivers, farmland and air, India has recognised that transitioning to a low-carbon economy is firmly in national interests, as well as those of the planet.

ACLU: withdrawal from Paris an 'assault on communities of colour'

Echoing the earlier points made by Refugees International, the American Civil Liberties Union has pointed out that “climate change doesn’t affect us all equally”.

Though this has been derided in some (especially conservative) corners of Twitter, but the fact is that the impact of climate change on disadvantaged groups is well established.

A 2014 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said being in poverty made the impacts worse and part of preparing for the future was addressing inequality in society:

Climate-related hazards affect poor people’s lives directly through impacts on livelihoods, reductions in crop yields, or destruction of homes and indirectly through, for example, increased food prices and food insecurity. Observed positive effects for poor and marginalized people, which are limited and often indirect, include examples such as diversification of social networks and of agricultural practices.

Meanwhile, in other Trump news:

Republican Rick Santorum called on Trump to pull out of the Paris accord on CNN on Thursday morning, arguing against renewable energies as “not reliable, not consistent” on a panel with former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm.

Santorum: “It’s not reliable, it’s not consistent.”
Granholm: “oO my God!”

He was ridiculed for this on social media.

Santorum explained that he was “sad to be criticized by the left for something as obvious” as solar energy being complicated by “clouds & darkness”.

This didn’t really serve to ease the ridicule.

Santorum is a co-chair of Americans for Energy Security and Innovation, which seeks to reduce US dependence on foreign oil.

As experts, environmentalists, business leaders and others condemn Trump’s announcement, others have argued the move is mostly symbolic.

Luke Kemp, economist and political scientist at the Australian National University, recently wrote a paper in Nature Climate Change, arguing that the world is better off with the US out of the Paris Agreement. We discussed his comments here and here.

In response to the move, Kemp has now added: “This is now a chance to forget about the US and for a critical mass of leaders to move ahead without them.”

He continued: “The announcement today does not impact US emissions or climate financing. In practical terms, it simply means that the US doesn’t need to put forward a new pledge every five years. Trump’s decision to withdraw does not tangibly effect US emissions or action. It does signal that he wants the US to become a technological fossil.”

Importantly, it could mean the US will not be able to act effectively to stifle international action: “...other countries are far less likely to accede to the demands of a withdrawing climate pariah.”

John Quiggin, an economist at the University of Queensland, argued along similar lines.

“The announcement itself is primarily symbolic, but other actions of the Trump administration mean that US emissions will decline more slowly than they should.

“However, the preliminary evidence is that this action will not be taken as a signal for other countries to follow, but rather as a further indication that the US has abandoned its leadership role in the US economy. The impact will be further reduced by the commitment of California and other state governments to pursue ambitious policies for emissions reductions.”

The Indian government has not yet responded to Trump’s announcement, which came shortly after 1am local time, but at a forum last month India’s energy minister reaffirmed the south Asian giant’s commitment to the global climate agreement.

“The road from Paris to today has been somewhat bumpy,” Piyush Goyal said. “We will have to sort that out. But I’d like to reassure each one of you here today that India stands committed to its commitments made at Paris irrespective of what happens in the rest of the world.”

An unnamed official also told Reuters this week the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, had assured German chancellor Angela Merkel on an official visit to Berlin that India would remain in the agreement regardless of Trump’s announcement.

The world aligns on Paris – bar Syria, Nicaragua and er, the US

Robert Garcia, mayor of Long Beach City, has tweeted this map showing the three countries not part of the Paris agreement: the US, Syria and Nicaragua. “What a national embarrassment...”

But the map alone doesn’t tell the full story: Nicaragua has not signed onto the agreement because it doesn’t go far enough.

Slate reports that Paul Oquist, who represented the country at the Paris negotiations in 2015, believed that the agreement would fail because its commitments were not binding.

“[We’re not going to submit because] voluntary responsibility is a path to failure,” Quist told a reporter from Climate Home in 2015. “We don’t want to be [an] accomplice to taking the world to 3 to 4 degrees and the death and destruction that represents.”

Oquist also said countries with the most emissions should take greater responsibility for tackling climate change. The US ranks second, behind China; Nicaragua ranks 131. According to the World Bank, it is already on track towards having 90% renewable energy by 2020.

As for the US, well...

According to Vox, Trump has tweeted scepticism or denialism about climate change 115 times since 2011.

They have compiled all of them in a list that, in other less impactful circumstances, might make for amusing reading (“Most of his tweets involve some kind of confusion between climate and weather”).

California senator Kamala Harris tweeted the link with a wry observation care of Maya Angelou.

An interesting perspective from Guardian Australia’s opinion team – Indigenous knowledges, compiled and refined over tens of thousands of years, have the greatest potential to sustain human life on this planet:

“And yet, even while the planet continues to heat up, people still don’t connect the dots. Many people still completely undervalue Indigenous knowledges, in spite of people like award-winning scientist, broadcaster and environmentalist, Dr David Suzuki urging society and our institutions not to. On his last trip here, Suzuki said that ‘Australia could learn from its Indigenous peoples ... to me the paradigm shift is that we have to see the world as Indigenous people see it.’.”

Buildings go green the world over

The Elders, the independent global group campaigning for human rights chaired by Kofi Annan, has condemned Trump’s decision in reiterating their commitment to moving away from fossil fuels.

Annan said the Paris agreement was born out of a desire to find a cooperative solution to “the great existential threat of our time”: “While the US withdrawal weakens that international accord, it will not trigger its demise.”

Mary Robinson, a former UN Special Envoy on Climate Change, said the US was a “rogue state on the international stage”, but action was ongoing at state level, in cities, in businesses and communities across the country.

The Elders repeated their concern at the Trump administration’s decision not to provide climate finance to help developing countries. Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former UN Special Envoy on Climate Change, said it weakened “already frayed bonds of trust between developed and developing countries”:

“It places an enormous burden on other industrialised countries to mobilise the $100 billion per year promised to support climate action in developing countries.”

In a televised address, French president Emmanuel Macron said Trump’s pulling out of the Paris agreement was a mistake. He urged scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and anyone disappointed by the decision to see France as a “second homeland”, adding: “I call on them come and work here with us.”

“The Paris agreement remain irreversible and will be implemented not just by France but by all the other nations. We will succeed because we are fully committed, because wherever we live, whoever we are, we all share the same responsibility: make our planet great again.”

Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, said in a memo to employees that he tried on Tuesday to talk President Trump into seeing through the Paris deal but “it wasn’t enough”. CNN obtained the message:

I want to reassure you that today’s developments will have no impact on Apple’s efforts to protect the environment. We power nearly all of our operations with renewable energy, which we believe is an example of something that’s good for our planet and makes good business sense as well.”

Earlier, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Disney’s Robert Iger announced their resignation from Trump’s council on principle. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai of Google have also expressed disappointment.

Guardian Australia’s political editor, Katharine Murphy, has written on the impact of the US’ decision on Australia’s tortured climate change policy debate:

The US president’s willingness to surrender global leadership on important issues is, from this distance, truly unfathomable. Even his withdrawal patter on Friday morning was pathetic. America was out, but would come back in if it could get a better deal. America was out, but possibly back in, because the citizens of Pittsburgh apparently don’t care about climate change. ...

I know there’s a valid school of thought that says silly Trump doesn’t matter, that America’s recklessness will galvanise the public around the importance of climate change, that the trend towards decarbonisation is now hard-baked in to the system – but that’s not how things look if you sit on the Australian government’s perch.

For prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and his government, Trump’s timing is deeply unhelpful, to put it mildly.”

Vatican senior official: US exit 'disaster for everyone'

A senior official of the Vatican said it would see a US exit from the Paris agreement as a slap in the face, Reuters reported before Trump announced his decision.

Pope Francis, who strongly backed the deal, gave Trump a signed copy of his 2015 encyclical letter calling for the environment to be protected from the effects of climate change at his meeting with the US president last month.

In a separate meeting, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, urged not to quit the Paris accord.

“If he really does [pull out], it would be a huge slap in the face for us,” Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, head of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, told the Rome newspaper La Repubblica and later confirmed to Reuters. “It will be a disaster for everyone.”

Sorondo said he believed the US oil lobby was behind the decision and that the industry had “maneuvered” Trump.

A withdrawal “would not only be a disaster but completely unscientific,” he said. “Saying that we need to rely on coal and oil is like saying that the earth is not round. It is an absurdity dictated by the need to make money.”

After an Australian political scientist argued that benefits could emerge from the US’ decision to renege on Paris, Michael Liebreich, founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, has voiced similar on Twitter.

It remains to be seen whether Liebreich’s predictions will come true, though as he says: “I’m wrong around 30% of the time”.

At least on his fourth point, one could reasonably argue that threshold was passed long ago.

Japan: Paris 'critical' to tackling climate change

Japan’s foreign ministry has described the US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement as “regrettable”.

“Climate change requires a concerted effort by the whole of the international community,” the ministry said in a statement on Friday morning. “Japan believes the leadership of the developed countries to be of great importance, and the steady implementation of the Paris agreement is critical in this regard.

“As Japan was hoping to work with the United States within the framework of the Paris agreement, the recent announcement by the US administration on its withdrawal ... is regrettable.”

The statement pointed out that the US was the world’s second largest emitter of the greenhouse gases, but possessed the technical knowhow to address climate change.

“Japan hopes to explore ways in which it can cooperate with the United States so as to effectively address climate change issues.”

Tokyo said it would work with other parties to the Paris agreement to ensure its “steady and full implementation. Through such efforts, Japan will vigorously tackle this important issue of climate change.”

Refugees International has said in a statement it is “dismayed and deeply alarmed” by the decision to pull out of the Paris accord, given the impact of climate change on displacement and humanitarian crises.

The hundreds of millions of people across the globe who live in low-lying coastal areas and river deltas are already exposed to floods, storms, and rising sea levels. In other parts of the world, more frequent and severe droughts are undermining food security.

The US’ decision to renege on its commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions compounds the devastating impact of its severe cuts to humanitarian funding, says RI, meaning it is not only “doing less to prevent human suffering but to alleviate it as well”.

RI’s climate displacement program manager, Alice Thomas, said Trump’s decision would be felt most keenly by people in “the poorest and least stable regions of the world”.

“It means America walking away from its global leadership role and leaving the door open to irreversible and catastrophic effects that will touch every aspect of our lives at home and abroad.”

Yesterday, just before Trump announced the US would withdraw, Australia’s The Climate Institute released polling on what Australians think the country should do in the case of the US withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.

The majority – 61% – thought Australia should work harder with other countries to achieve the goals of Paris, if the US withdrew.

Another 26% thought Australia should maintain its current position.

There were, however, a full 12% of respondents who thought Australia should follow Trump’s lead.

Acting CEO of The Climate Institute, Olivia Kember, said in a statement: “Along with the leaders of EU nations, China, India, major global businesses and investors, Australian citizens recognise that it’s in our own interest to stay in the Paris Agreement and make it work.”

Following our earlier report on the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson’s upcoming visit to New Zealand, the prime minister has released a statement:

“The Prime Minister and Secretary Tillerson will discuss a range of issues including trade, regional security, the fight against terror and, as the Prime Minister has said, he will register New Zealand’s disappointment at the US decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement.

“New Zealand remains absolutely committed to meeting our own targets. The clear message from around the world is that the global community will press ahead with the Paris agenda and we will play our part.”

Protests are planned for Tillerson’s visit to Wellington on Tuesday.

Trump's climate speech annotated and analysed

My colleague, Guardian US’ environment reporter Oliver Milman, has sifted through the statements Trump made in his speech, noting on the rather casual caveat he slipped in: that the US will renegotiate this pact, or maybe some other pact, aimed at ensuring the future liveability of the planet. But if it doesn’t work out, that’s OK.

Check out Ollie’s point-by-point analysis below:

Fox News host: Trump called me for advice

Media Matters has shared a clip from Thursday’s edition of Fox News’ The Five, in which Kimberly Guilfoyle says Trump called her for advice earlier that morning.

Guilfoyle’s revelation that the president called her at 8am (“it said unknown. I thought it was Fox News”) took even her co-hosts by surprise, as the below transcript shows:

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE: I don’t think this is a deal that anybody should be crying about. Like we said, it’s non-binding, and the United States is already a clean energy, oil and gas leader. So, we can keep doing what we’re doing, we can keep reducing our emissions. Why would we in fact put ourselves at an economic disadvantage, giving and subsidising an economic windfall to other countries, in sort of a climate redistribution of wealth scheme? It makes no sense to me.

I think he did the brave and courageous thing, and in fact, I told him that this morning at 8AM, when he called. And I spoke to him about it, and this was something very much so on his mind, but he seemed like...

GREG GUTFELD: Wait a second, who called you?

GUILFOYLE: The president.

GUTFELD: Why?

DANA PERINO: To ask about climate change?

GUTFELD: Why did he call you?

GUILFOYLE: Climate change, taxes. The Five.

GUTFELD: I think that you buried the lede here.

PERINO: You just tried to slip that in there, just like maybe it happens all the time.

GUTFELD: I know: ‘yeah, the president called me at 8 in the morning’.

GUILFOYLE: It said “unknown,” I thought it was Fox News. But then he said he loves The Five – “terrific show” – and said to say hello to all of you.

A group of Filipino activists have protested the then-impending withdrawal of the US from the Paris agreement at the US Embassy in Manila. The Manila Climate Rebel Alliance called for a global stand to be made against “Trump the Hutt and his fellow fossil fuel gangsters”.

Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has called on Trump to reconsider his decision to leave the Paris accord in a 2.5-minute video:

“One man cannot destroy our progress. One man can’t stop our clean energy revolution. And one man can’t go back in time. Only I can do that. ...

“Mr President, I know that it can be easier and more comfortable to look backwards. ... But some of us know what a clean energy future looks like and it isn’t scary. ...

“The dirty energy future with asthma, emphysema and cancer is much, much more terrifying.”

Republican politicians and representatives of the coal industry have cheered Trump’s action.

“President Trump’s courageous decision to exit the Paris Accord recognises that the US is not legally bound to an Obama-era agreement that set unrealistic emissions targets at the expense of billions of American taxpayer dollars without the approval of Congress,” said Texas attorney general Ken Paxton, who joined nine other states in urging Trump to leave the agreement.

Last week, 22 Republican senators had written to the president urging him to “make a clean break” from the Paris deal. The letter was drafted by Wyoming’s John Barrasso, chairman of the Senate committee on environment and public works, and Oklahoma’s Jim Inhofe, a longtime climate change denier and senior member of that committee.

Tom McCarthy and Lauren Gambino of Guardian US have broken down the 22 signatories’ interests in the oil, gas and coal industries and found a sum total of nearly US $10.7m over the past three election cycles.

Updated

Political scientist Luke Kemp from the Australian National University has argued that not only is the US’ decision to pull out of the Paris agreement not as catastrophic as reported, there could even be some benefits to emerge.

One is the possibility for parties to the agreement to develop climate trade measures, such as border tax adjustments that institute a carbon tax on US imports. Similar measures were parts of other international agreements, including the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which successfully reduced the world’s reliance on ozone layer depleting substances.

Kemp also expressed hope that the withdrawal of the US would motivate other large powers like the EU and China to show stronger leadership – as certainly looks possible from the response of world leaders to Trump’s announcement.

But the risk of the US sabotaging action on climate change from outside the Paris agreement – for example, by cancelling climate financing for the developing world – certainly remains. Writing in The Conversation, Kemp concludes:

Wanting the US to remain is a short-sighted, knee-jerk reaction. The international community should be much more worried about the real domestic actions of the US, rather than whether it is symbolically cooperating internationally... Policy, not participation, needs to be the focus of criticism. Otherwise Paris will prove itself to be nothing more than a diplomatic fig leaf

Trump's full speech on dumping of 'Draconian' accord

“As president, I can put no other consideration before the wellbeing of American citizens. The Paris climate accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers – who I love – and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production.”

You can read Trump’s speech in full here.

Updated

Amid all the doom and gloom, it’s worth noting not all environmentalists think Trump’s withdrawal from Paris is so bad for the world.

It’s undoubtedly a hit for US credibility in future international agreements, but political scientist Luke Kemp from the Australian National University published an analysis in the journal Nature Climate Change just last week arguing the world is better off with a Trump-led US out of the agreement.

In a nutshell, Kemp’s argument is that Trump can do more damage to international climate action from within the agreement than he can outside of it. The US was likely to increase its emissions regardless of whether it remained in the agreement, he says – especially now that Trump abandoned Obama’s Clean Power Plan.

Paris may forfeit legitimacy due to the loss of a major emitter, but it is equally likely that its legitimacy would have been grievously injured by the US blatantly violating the spirit and purpose of the agreement.

Hillary Clinton: decision to pull out 'a historic mistake'

Echoing the earlier criticism of her husband, Hillary Clinton has tweeted her condemnation of Trump’s decision, calling it a “historic mistake ... [that] leaves American workers & families behind”.

Clinton has been increasingly vocal in her criticism of Trump as she ramps up her public appearances after several months of laying low following her bruising defeat in the presidential election last year.

Al Gore: withdrawal from Paris agreement 'reckless and indefensible'

The former vice-president has released a scathing statement:

Removing the United States from the Paris Agreement is a reckless and indefensible action. It undermines America’s standing in the world and threatens to damage humanity’s ability to solve the climate crisis in time. But make no mistake: if President Trump won’t lead, the American people will.

“Civic leaders, mayors, governors, CEOs, investors and the majority of the business community will take up this challenge. We are in the middle of a clean energy revolution that no single person or group can stop. President Trump’s decision is profoundly in conflict with what the majority of Americans want from our president; but no matter what he does, we will ensure that our inevitable transition to a clean energy economy continues.

Last week, Gore had said in Cannes there was an “excellent chance” that Trump would surprise many by deciding to stay in the Paris agreement – but even withdrawing would not slow the momentum of the climate movement. He pointed to Atlanta, Georgia’s recent commitment to 100% renewable energy by 2035.

He did express concern that other nations might follow suit:

“The Paris agreement has an historic significance of its own. And if the largest economy in the world were to withdraw, it would present a risk that some other countries might use that as an excuse. So it’s important that we stay in.”

Gore’s new documentary, An Inconvenient Sequel, opened the Sundance festival at the start of this year.

Thanks Sam – I’m taking over the reins of our rolling coverage of Trump’s Paris Agreement announcement from Australia, where Guardian Australia’s climate blogger Graham Readfearn has joined the global chorus of condemnation:

Make no mistake here.

The foundation for Trump’s dismissal of the Paris deal – and for the people who pushed him the hardest to do it – is the rejection of the science linking fossil-fuel burning to dangerous climate change.

Or rather, Trump’s rejection of the Paris deal was built on the flimsy, cherry-picked and long-debunked talking points of an industry built to manufacture doubt about climate science. Once you fall for those arguments, making an economic case suddenly feels plausible.

'America’s worst-ever president'

The view from some of the Guardian’s opinion writers:

Dana Nuccitelli, environmental scientist and risk assessor, says it “now seems inevitable that the history books will view Trump as America’s worst-ever president”.

“Given our culpability in creating an urgent world-wide environmental crisis, it was a moral duty to keep our commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. To walk away is supremely selfish,” writes Jill Abramson:

And David Suzuki on the way Trump’s rationale for abandoning the Paris agreement is outdated and false:

Mexico has stated its “unconditional support for the Paris accord,” saying it “will continue to meet its established goals” for reducing carbon emissions, the AP reports.

The nation’s foreign relations department said in a statement:

Efforts to slow climate change are a moral imperative, because we owe it to future generations.”

Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto reiterated his commitment on Twitter:

The view from New Zealand

Protests are planned in New Zealand where US secretary of state Rex Tillerson has a Wellington visit scheduled next Tuesday. Niamh O’Flynn, executive director of 350 Aotearoa, a climate change group, said:

Trump is out of step with the rest of the world, and we need to make sure he feels that when his Secretary of State lands in Wellington on Tuesday. People and governments around the world are backing the US into a corner where they the lonely outlier. [Prime minister] Bill English must denounce this move to show whose side we’re on.”

Opposition leader Andrew Little said in a statement:

We can’t now let the USA water down the Paris Accord. Mr Tillerson must be reminded that the world can only combat climate change together and that New Zealand stands shoulder-to-shoulder with other nations which have embraced the challenge.

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were not at Trump’s announcement, because, according to a White House official, the couple was attending a service at synagogue.

Ivanka had met with Al Gore last year, sparking rumors that the president’s daughter, could influence her father on climate change, women’s health and other issues. Some hoped she would encourage the White House not to abandon the Paris agreement.

Politico is now reporting that Ivanka seems to have “lost” on the Paris accord, but that she and Kushner, a senior advisor, “have taken the defeat in stride”:

After she organized five weeks of meetings focused on the Paris agreement — including her own sit-down with EPA administrator Scott Pruitt and enlisting people like Apple CEO Tim Cook to speak to the president about climate — Ivanka Trump appeared to have lost on one of the issues where she at one point expected to hold some sway.

Protests across the US

Scenes of protests across the country this afternoon:

Former president Bill Clinton has offered his criticism of the president’s decision:

Earlier, Hillary Clinton slammed the possible exit from the agreement, calling it “incredibly foolish” and “really stupid”, adding:

The president is a very impulsive, reactive personality. So, if we all like the Paris agreement, he may decide to get out of it, not even understanding one bit about what that means.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is not the only executive to step down from Trump’s council following the Paris Agreement withdrawal. Robert Iger, CEO of Disney, has also just announced his resignation “as a matter of principle”:

Earlier in the day, General Motors CEO Mary Barra said she would remain on Trump’s strategy and policy forum, saying the group “provides GM a seat at an important table to contribute to a constructive dialogue about key policy issues”.

The White House in a new statement says Trump had “frank, substantive discussions” about the Paris agreement with the leaders of Germany, France, Canada and Britain.

The president also promised that during his administration, the US “will be the cleanest and most environmentally friendly country on Earth”, adding that the world leaders “all agreed to continue dialogue and strengthen cooperation on environmental and other issues going forward”.

Read more on the reactions from world leaders here.

The central message from Emmanuel Macron, in large capital letters:

Fact checking White House claims

The AP has released some helpful fact checks of Trump’s case for withdrawing the US from the climate agreement, noting that some of his claims are “shaky”:

For one, the White House cites a study paid for by groups that profit from fossil fuels.

Trump also claims 1m jobs have been created since the election. That’s basically right, but he earns no credit for jobs created in the months before he became president.

The White House cited a study by NERA Consulting, claiming that meeting the Obama administration’s requirements in the Paris agreement would cost the US economy nearly $3tn over several decades. The US Chamber of Commerce and the American Council for Capital Formation paid for the research, according to the AP. Both groups have financial ties to people who profit from the burning of fossil fuels.

The AP also noted that the president’s citation of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study was questionable. The White House claimed that the research found that if all member nations met their obligations, the climate impact would be negligible, but the MIT author said the administration is citing an outdated version and was taking the information out of context.

Governors announce 'climate alliance'

The Democratic governors of New York, California and Washington have announced a new US Climate Alliance, billed as a “coalition that will convene US states committed to upholding the Paris Climate Agreement and taking aggressive action on climate change”.

The three states combined represent more than one-fifth of the US gross domestic product, roughly 68m people and at least 10% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Officials said they are committed to achieving the US goal of reducing emissions by 26-28% of 2005 levels.

Jerry Brown, governor of California, which has positioned itself as a leader in fighting climate change, said:

If the President is going to be AWOL in this profoundly important human endeavor, then California and other states will step up.”

Sam Levin in San Francisco on the blog now, taking over for Tom McCarthy.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who insists he is not running for president, despite persistent rumors, has offered his criticisms of Trump’s announcement:

Withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement is bad for the environment, bad for the economy, and it puts our children’s future at risk.

For our part, we’ve committed that every new data center we build will be powered by 100% renewable energy.

Stopping climate change is something we can only do as a global community, and we have to act together before it’s too late.

Macron: Trump made a 'mistake'

Here’s Macron, speaking in English.

“I do respect this decision, but I do think it is an actual mistake both for the US and for our planet. I just said President Trump in a few words a few minutes ago this assessment.

“Tonight I wish to tell the United States, France believes in you. The world believes in you...”

Updated

The view from Australia

The Turnbull government has recommitted to Australia’s emissions targets in the Paris Agreement after Donald Trump’s withdrawal but faces internal division as conservative MPs celebrated the decision.

Energy and environment minister Josh Frydenberg said he was disappointed with Trump’s decision but reiterated the Turnbull government’s full commitment to the Paris Accord.

“We reiterate our full commitment to the Paris Accord,” Frydenberg told the ABC. “We believe that the targets we agreed to, the 26% to 28% reduction in emissions by 2030 on 2005 levels are reasonable, are achievable.

“I do believe that it is still a very meaningful agreement. You have more than 190 countries that signed on and in record time, 146 countries have ratified. So even without the US, around 70% of the world’s emissions are covered by that agreement.”

But Liberal MP and chair of the backbench environment committee, Craig Kelly, who was at the forefront of the campaign which forced Frydenberg to rule out any form of carbon trading, had “champagne on ice” waiting for the US withdrawal.

Early on Friday morning, he posted “THEY’RE OUT”, welcoming the decision with a video of Whitney Houston singing the Star Spangled Banner.

“There is a more efficient way to generate energy than using fossil fuels, it’s just that mankind hasn’t yet worked it out,” Kelly said.

“But if our history tells us anything, we are more likely to discover that new technology by combining free market capitalism with the wealth created by fossil fuels - than we are through central planning and government imposed regulations that destroy wealth.”

Angela Merkel called Donald Trump immediately after he delivered his announcement, expressing her regret during a phone call at his decision, her spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Twitter.

During the conversation she stressed that Germany would stick to the agreement.

He added in another tweet in English: “Chancellor Merkel disappointed w/Pres. Trump’s decision. Now more than ever we will work for global policies that save our planet,” he wrote.

According to Seibert immediately after her call to Trump, Merkel telephoned with France’s president Emmanuel Macron, he said, and they were in agreement that “Germany and France will grasp at new initiatives in order to ensure the climate agreement is a success”.

In a further tweet, he added that Germany, France and Italy were in agreement that the Paris agreement should not be renegotiated as it was of “vital importance for our planet”.

French president to speak live

New French president Emmanuel Macron isn’t going to bed until he’s had his say about Trump’s withdrawal, apparently. He was to have started speaking 10 minutes ago, we’ll report what we hear.

Reaction from We Rate Dogs:

Reaction, cont'd

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi: “abandoning America’s leadership”:

Pulling out of the Paris Accord defies the overwhelming support for action from credible scientists, the governments of 194 different countries and many religious groups. Faith leaders from Pope Francis to the evangelical community have urged us to act to preserve the beauty of God’s creation.

“By walking away from this pact, President Trump is abandoning America’s leadership position in the fight against the climate crisis and is sending a strong message to the rest of the world to create, design and manufacture clean energy solutions and create jobs elsewhere. If President Trump wants nations like China and India to take stronger and swifter action on climate, then he should do so through the accountability and enforcement provisions in the Paris Agreement, not by breaking our word and storming out of the room.

The view from Russia

Trump’s withdrawal announcement came in the late evening in Russia, and official commentary was not immediately available. But Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier on Thursday that Russia “attaches great importance” to the Paris climate accord, and a US withdrawal could complicate the agreement’s implementation.

“Of course, the effectiveness and realisation of this convention will be hampered without key participants,” Peskov told journalists. “There is no alternative (to the accord) at this time.”

The Russian television station Ren TV warned that climate change “could turn into a real catastrophe” after the US withdrawal.

In a statement last year, the foreign ministry said Moscow signing the Paris accord “reaffirms Russia’s commitment to the joint objectives of the international community in global warming”.

But in the past, climate change has often been seen as beneficial for Russia, which has been rushing to develop military bases, shipping routes and oil and gas fields in the Arctic as the region warms. Even though climate change has exacerbated forest fires and thawed permafrost in Russia, according to scientists, the issue has not been widely covered by state media here.

Putin, who once joked that Russians would spend less on fur coats, said at an Arctic forum in March that climate change would “continue anyway and anyhow” and skeptics “may not be at all silly”.

“Climate change brings in more favorable conditions and improves the economic potential of this region,” Putin said.

Astronaut Scott Kelly:

Obama’s official photographer:

Trump after his speech.
Trump after his speech. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Trump.
Trump. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters
Cohn, Bannon, Priebus.
Cohn, Bannon, Priebus. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Florida Representative Charlie Crist: ‘heartbroken’

Europe says no 'renegotiation' of Paris deal

It looks like Trump’s plan to “renegotiate” the Paris deal may be a clown plan:

Merkel 'regrets' Trump move

The Berliner Kurier has a hot front page for Friday:

“One of the most important contracts in the history of humanity saw 195 countries committing in 2015 to save the planet for our children. But now the man in the White House is putting the project at risk. Is he a danger for us all?” the paper asks in an editorial.
Martin Schulz, leader of the Social Democrats and the party’s
candidate for September’s elections tweeted: “You can withdraw from a climate agreement but not from climate change, Mr Trump. Reality isn’t just another statesman you shove away”.
The opposition Green Party tweeted: “Trump leaves the Paris agreement. A hard defeat for climate protection. All the more decisively will we now fight for our planets.”
Cem Özdemir, joint leader of the Greens tweeted: “Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing. We do!”, and went on to promote a joint climate union between the EU and US states and cities. “Let’s work on climate protection”, he said.
But German climate experts were generally of the opinion that whether Trump’s government was in or out of the Paris agreement, the effect would be the same.
“In any case the members of this government are for personal and
political reasons not interested in making laws to protect the environment - of whatever kind - which they see as getting in the way of doing business,” said Matthias Ruth, a German professor at the Northeastern University in Boston.
Lukas Hermwille, scientific researcher in the field of international
climate policy at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, drew attention to the fact that the exit from the agreement would anyway only come into effect in around three years’ time “ironically,” he told Die Welt, “on the day after the next US presidential election”. But Trump could still spend the rest of his time in office torpedoing climate protection from the inside out, he added.

Updated

Pittsburgh rejects Trump embrace

“I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” Trump said.

The line has ticked off a lot of Pittsburghers.

The Weather Channel responds:

Reactions, cont'd

Here’s the CEO of General Electric:

Democratic Pennsylvania senator Casey:

Elon Musk:

Republican senator Graham:

The mayor of Pittsburgh:

Here’s Guardian US environment reporter Oliver Milman:

A future president can reverse this but America’s standing in the world will take a while to recover. Those renewable jobs will go OS & emissions cuts will slow at a time when they must accelerate if we are to avoid the worst in sea level rise, heatwaves, loss of reefs etc

View from Brussels: 'a sad day for the global community'

The news was met with disbelief and anger in Brussels, where the EU and China are currently mid-way through a summit at the end of which they will announce their acceleration of efforts to combat climate change under the Paris agreement.

The EU’s commissioner for climate action and energy, Miguel Arias Cañete, said the vacuum left by the US’s withdrawal would now be filled be new global leaders, and he vowed that the climate accord would endure.

He said: “Today’s announcement has galvanised us rather than weakened us, and this vacuum will be filled by new broad committed leadership. Europe and its strong partners all around the world are ready to lead the way. We will work together to face one of the most compelling challenges of our time.”

Cañete added: “Today is a sad day for the global community, as a key partner turns its back on the fight against climate change. The EU deeply regrets the unilateral decision by the Trump administration to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement.

“The Paris Agreement is fit for purpose. Paris is ambitious yet not prescriptive. The Paris Agreement allows each Party to forge its own path to contributing to the goals of preventing dangerous climate change. So there is room for the US to chart its own course within the Paris Agreement. 195 countries have signed the Paris Agreement, 195 different paths to meeting the Paris goals.”

Others, however, hit out at the US president’s move. The president of the European parliament, Antonio Tajani, said: “It is a matter of trust and leadership. This decision will hurt the US and the planet.”

Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the liberal group in the European parliament tweeted a report on the impact of rising tides on Hawaii, adding: “MAKE AMERICA SMALL AGAIN”.

The comments came shortly after Tusk, and the president of the European Commission president, Jean Claude Juncker, had an informal dinner with the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, in Brussels.

Trump's Paris pullout is more damaging to the US than the climate

Will Donald Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate change agreement tip the world into fiery catastrophe? The extraordinary unity of the rest of the world’s nations in tackling global warming, allied with the booming green economy, driven by plummeting renewable energy costs, are strong reasons to think not.

A much more likely casualty of Trump’s choice is the US economy he claims to be protecting: America’s brilliance at innovation, investment and building businesses will no longer have its government’s support. The prize of leadership in the 21st-century economy could be sacrificed in a doomed attempt to revive the fossil-fuelled economy of the 20th century.

However much Trump “digs coal”, he cannot force companies to build coal-fired power stations if wind and solar are cheaper and executives are smart enough to realise that a billion-dollar bet on a new plant – likely to be closed by Trump’s successor – is not a winner.

Instead, US states and cities will continue to pursue the green future that secures clean air, water and the promise of climate stability for their citizens. That is no small deal: combined together, California and New York City would be the fourth biggest economy in the world.

Read further:

Trump says withdrawing from the deal “represents a reassertion of America’s sovereignty.” Then he says it’s his “highest obligation and greatest honor” to protect the US constitution.

Reactions, cont'd

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who long opposed the accord, praised Trump’s decision to withdraw, calling the treaty “simply a raw deal for America”:

“Signed by President Obama without Senate ratification, it would have driven up the cost of energy, hitting middle-class and low-income Americans the hardest,” Ryan said in a statement. “In order to unleash the power of the American economy, our government must encourage production of American energy.”

Trump conjures global conspiracy behind Paris deal

Trump says the tax reform bill “is moving along in Congress” and people will be “pleasantly surprised.”

“It’s going very well,” Trump says.

Then he says the Paris deal “handicaps the US economy in order to win praise from the very global activists and [who?] that have long sought to gain wealth at our expense...”

In that section, Trump pointed to a shadowy global conspiracy that created the Paris deal to steal US treasure and insult her citizenry. This is the Bannon section.

“You see what’s happening,” Trump says. “It’s pretty obvious to those who keep an open mind.”

Then he warns that other countries are laughing at the USA:

At what point does America get demeaned. At what point does America get laughed at as a country.

“I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” Trump says.

The fact that the Paris deal hamstrings the United States while empowering some of the world’s top polluting countries should expel any doubt as to why foreign lobbyists should wish to keep our beautiful country tied up and bound down... that’s not going to happen while I’m president, I’m sorry.

– Donald Trump

Reactions, cont'd

Tom Steyer, the environmental activist and Democratic mega-donor, vowed retribution for Trump’s action.

“The Trump Administration has just committed assault and battery on the future of the American people,” Steyer, who serves as the president of the advocacy group NextGen Climate, said in a statement.

“By pulling out of the Paris Agreement, Donald Trump is betraying the moral, political, and economic leadership position America has achieved over centuries at the cost of American lives. Yet the voice of the people remains the most powerful force in the land, and we will be heard.”

Brian Deese, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama who led the previous administration’s efforts on climate, said Trump’s decision marked a retreat from “a total global consensus” on the need to combat global warming.

“The diplomatic blowback will be significant,” he said, while pointing to the widespread support for the Paris accord among every one of America’s key allies.

“Diplomacy is a give and take,” Deese added.

“The next time the United States is looking for partnership, a lot of these countries will legitimately say when it came to an issue we cared about, you weren’t there for us.” And that’s a meaningful thing.”

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer described Trump’s decision as “a devastating failure of historic proportions.”

“Future generations will look back on President Trump’s decision as one of the worst policy moves made in the 21st century because of the huge damage to our economy, our environment and our geopolitical standing,” Schumer said in a statement.

“Pulling out of the Paris agreement doesn’t put America first, it puts America last in recognizing science, in being a world leader and protecting our own shore line, our economy and our planet,” he added. “It’s now crystal clear President Trump is comfortable both ceding the moral high ground and the economic upper hand to countries like China, and endangering the future of our planet.”

Updated

Trump portrays Paris deal as economic catastrophe for US

Trump calls the Paris deal a “self-inflicted major economic wound.” There’s no indication that’s the case, but likewise nothing stopping him from saying it.

Trump is making out the Paris deal, which hadn’t dug in in the US’ energy policy yet when he was elected, to be the source of a made-up US economic catastrophe and hemorrhaging of jobs and GDP.

“The agreement is a massive redistribution of United States wealth to other countries,” Trump says.

Again, a wild claim, wildly unfounded from the president. He says “we’ll be at grave risk of brownouts and blackouts, our businesses will come to a halt in many cases” under the Paris deal.

The Paris accord “is very unfair at the highest level to the United States,” Trump says.

Trump says the agreement blocks the development of clean coal. “And the mines are starting to open up. We’re having a big opening,” he says.

Then he says Paris would have outlawed US coal but allowed China and Indian coal.

“In short the agreement doesn’t eliminate coal jobs, it just transfers those jobs out of the United States.” Coal jobs, and the role of coal in US energy production, were long gone before the Paris deal.

Trump says the Paris deal would cost the US economy $3tn in lost GDP.

Then Trump says he’s backing out of the deal owing to his environmental conscience:

As someone who cares deeply about the environment, as I do, I cannot in good conscience support a deal which harms the United States, which it does.

Obama: 'States, cities, and businesses will step up'

Updated

Trump on Paris: 'We're getting out'

Trump says that “one-by-one” he’s keeping the promises he made in his presidential campaign.

“Believe me, we’ve just begun,” he says. “The fruits of our labor will be seen very shortly.”

“I don’t want anything to get in our way,” he says. “Therefore, in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America... the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord.”

Trump fans in the crowd clap. “Thank you,” he says.

“But begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States...

“So we’re getting out but we’ll start to negotiate and we’ll see if we can make a deal that’s fair.’

Updated

Donald Trump arrives. He says he’s monitoring an attack at a casino in Manila. Then he says he made “a very very successful trip” abroad, “believe me.” He says he is creating American jobs.

Updated

Pence:

“The American people ... will see once again, our president is choosing to put American jobs and American consumers first... and choosing to put America’s forgotten men and women first.”

Pence: 'America is back'

Pence welcomes everyone. “You know it’s the greatest privilege of my life to serve as vice president to a president who is fighting every day to make America great again,” Pence says.

“And this president has been rolling back excessive regulations and unfair trade practices that were stifling American jobs,” he says.

“Thanks to president Donald Trump, America is back.”

The live stream is active. Vice president Mike Pence has come out.

Further reaction

Jacqueline Savitz, executive with Oceana:

President Trump’s decision regarding the Paris Agreement on climate action spells trouble for the world’s oceans -- and for humanity. The oceans have already absorbed massive amounts of heat and carbon dioxide, causing ocean waters to become more acidic. This is bad news for corals, molluscs like clams and oysters, and arthropods like lobsters and crabs. That means not only ecological devastation but a hit to our seafood economy.

Coastal communities and ecosystems around the world are threatened with seas that are rising because of the expansion of warmed waters and the melting of ancient ice caps. Disruption of ocean food chains could increase the risk of hunger for the millions of people around the world who depend on ocean fish for their food and livelihood.

Kierán Suckling, executive director, Center for Biological Diversity:

Trump just confirmed his total contempt for our planet’s future. With this reckless rejection of international climate cooperation, the administration took a giant step toward turning our country into a rogue nation. Most Americans want global action against global warming, but Trump’s foreign policy seems aimed strictly at appeasing coal companies and the oil industry.”

Sanders calls move 'an international disgrace'

No, Trump has not spoken yet, but the reactions are flooding in.

Senator Bernie Sanders: ‘an international disgrace’

President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement is an abdication of American leadership and an international disgrace. At this moment, when climate change is already causing devastating harm around the world, we do not have the moral right to turn our backs on efforts to preserve this planet for future generations.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: ‘betraying the country’

Trump is betraying the country, in the service of Breitbart fake news, the shameless fossil fuel industry, and the Koch brothers’ climate denial operation. It’s sad.

Erich Pica, president, Friends of the Earth US:

Today, Donald Trump turned the fate of the planet into a reality T.V. show hosted live from the White House Rose Garden. Trump’s grand reveal surprised no one; once again, he elevated Big Oil over our environment and the well-being of humanity.

History will harshly judge the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. By denying climate change and failing to act, Trump has put us on a path beset with increased famine, poverty, disease and death for millions of people in the U.S. and across the globe.

Jason Grumet, president, Bipartisan Policy Center:

Withdrawing from the Paris agreement will needlessly undermine U.S. relations with our allies and undercut international efforts to address climate change. Nearly 200 other nations will move forward with this agreement regardless of our participation. By exiting the process, President Trump forfeits America’s opportunity to shape the global economic transition that is already underway

The American Civil Liberties Union calls today’s move by Trump “a massive step back for racial justice”:

Here’s that live stream again. So you have it handy:

Updated

Environmental groups have pointed out that the Trump administration’s executive orders setting aside Obama-era emissions caps and other environmental protections have represented an abandonment of the fight against climate change before today’s news.

Which means that should the next US president be sympathetic to the idea of re-joining the Paris accord (assuming it still exists), he/she will have more work to do than simply signing back on to this one deal.

Priebus in green. What can it mean? Only one thing. Covfefe.

Today is a win for chief strategist Steve Bannon, who with Environmental Protection Administrator Scott Pruitt urged the president to jettison the Paris deal.

White House Chief Strategist Bannon arrives in the Rose Garden prior to U.S. President Donald Trump announcing decision on the Paris Climate Agreement.
White House Chief Strategist Bannon arrives in the Rose Garden prior to U.S. President Donald Trump announcing decision on the Paris Climate Agreement. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

While we wait... here’s more from the band:

White House talking points released – reports

Politico has published a document it says is the White House talking points for pulling out of the Paris accord.

The document squares with other reports about it. It reads:

Paris Accord – TALKERS

Topline: 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. 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 and job growth 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.

UNDERMINES U.S. Competitiveness and Jobs

  • According to a study by NERA Consulting, meeting the Obama Administration’s requirements in the Paris Accord would cost the U.S. economy 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 deal was negotiated BADLY, and extracts meaningless commitments from the world’s top polluters

  • 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 U.S. is ALREADY a Clean Energy and Oil & Gas Energy Leader; we can reduce our emissions and continue to produce American energy without the Paris Accord

  • America has already reduced its carbon-dioxide emissions dramatically.
  • Since 2006, CO2 emissions have declined by 12 percent, and are expected to continue to decline.
  • According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the U.S. is the leader in oil & gas production.

The agreement funds a UN Climate Slush Fund underwritten by 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 deal also accomplishes 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.

Live stream: Trump withdraws from Paris deal

Via the White House on Youtube:

Trump to call Paris accord a 'BAD' deal

White House talking points obtained by The Associated Press say that the Paris accord “is a BAD deal for Americans” and that the president’s action would keep “his campaign promise to put American workers first”:

“The Accord,” the document goes on to say, “was negotiated poorly by the Obama Administration and signed out of desperation.”

“The U.S. is already leading the world in energy production and doesn’t need a bad deal that will harm American workers,” it reads.

The White House had signaled that withdrawal was likely, but Trump has been known to change his mind at the last minute on such major decisions.

A former Obama senior adviser says the notion that the United States was cornered into making a bad deal in Paris is wrong:

Guardian Washington correspondent David Smith is in the Rose Garden, where “a band is playing bouncy, upbeat jazz”:

“I hear the unmistakable notes of ‘Summertime, and the livin’ is easy’ (orchestral only, no singer). Strangely apt for global warming.”

Wonder if these guys do weddings.
Wonder if these guys do weddings. Photograph: Guardian

Update: dig the bass:

Updated

Reuters and the Washington Post are quoting from a document said to be Trump’s upcoming speech. They have this:

  • Trump to say decision to withdraw ‘is keeping his campaign promise to put American workers first’
  • Trump to say Paris climate agreement ‘front loads costs on American people’ - document
  • Trump to say that the accord was bad, negotiated poorly by Obama administration and signed out of desperation.

The scene:

Trump to withdraw from Paris – AP

The Associated Press now has it:

Jon Ralston, the dean of Nevada politics journalists, makes this joke for the LAST TIME Please

Follow Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org (and Guardian contributor):

About right.

Trump tells Congress he's pulling plug on Paris – reports

The Daily Beast and CNN are carrying reports that Trump has told congressional staffers on a conference call that he’s withdrawing from the Paris accord.

Here’s the Beast:

On a conference call with Capitol Hill staffers ahead of the speech, White House energy policy adviser Michael Catanzaro confirmed that “the United States is getting out of the Paris agreement.” Trump, Catanzaro said, “will be open to and will immediately be looking for a better deal.” A source provided The Daily Beast with the call-in information.

Here’s CNN’s Jake Tapper:

World urges Trump not to dump Paris deal

World leaders, businesses, investors, scientists and development charities have joined in urging Donald Trump not to withdraw the US from the Paris climate change agreement.

The US president is due to announce his decision at 3pm ET on Thursday and is expected to pull the world’s largest economy, and second greatest polluter, from the global accord agreed unanimously by almost 200 nations in 2015.

The agreement to fight global warming is based on voluntary pledges to cut greenhouse emissions but Trump has argued this could damage the US economy. However, a huge range of US business leaders argue the opposite, saying the fast-growing green economy is an opportunity for the US.

Read further:

Note: we’ll embed live video provided by the White House in this blog when the big moment approaches. The video stream, currently inactive, is here.

Of all issues, is there any one more ill-suited to Trump’s reality TV production aesthetic, which prizes moments of grandiose revelation, than climate change? A generational issue that will be with us no matter what happens with this afternoon’s presidential curtain-drop.

Jean Chemnick of E&E News (Environment & Energy publishing) says Myron Ebell, chairman of a group “focused on dispelling the myths of global warming,” will be in the crowd with Trump at the White House today:

US would join Nicaragua and Syria as Paris dissenters

Assuming the US does, as expected, pull out of the historic Paris agreement on climate change, it will join a very small list of countries with which it has little else in common in terms of emissions.

The only other UN members not signed up are Nicaragua and Syria, which both chose not to enter into the climate accord in the first place.

Their reasons for doing so were very different from those that seem to be influencing Donald Trump, who has previously described climate change as a hoax.

Nicaragua’ declined to sign up because it thought the accord did not go far enough. In November 2015, Paul Oquist, Nicaragua’s lead envoy to the Paris negotiations, told Climate Home: “We’re not going to submit because voluntary responsibility is a path to failure. We don’t want to be an accomplice to taking the world to 3 to 4 degrees and the death and destruction that represents.”

Read further:

Hello, and welcome to our live coverage of Donald Trump’s announcement of whether he will withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord.

The president is playing up his decision for maximum political theatrical effect, having teased it for a couple days now. The big reveal is scheduled for 3pm ET (8pm BST) in the White House rose garden.

It must be said that Trump is expected to ditch the deal. Elected Republicans whom he needs to advance his domestic agenda want him to. His top political strategist reportedly wants him to. And a narrow majority of Republican voters favors erasing environmental regulations, according to Quinnipiac polling.

What is the Paris agreement?

It’s a climate change accord agreed by nearly 200 countries in December 2015, which came into force on 4 November 2016. The agreement commits world leaders to keeping global warming below 2C (3.6F), seen as the threshold for safety by scientists, and pursuing a tougher target of 1.5C (2.7F). The carbon emission curbs put forward by countries under Paris are not legally binding but the framework of the accord, which includes a mechanism for periodically cranking those pledges up, is binding. The agreement also has a long-term goal for net zero emissions which would effectively phase out fossil fuels.

What happens if the US withdraws?

The Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison writes:

The US is not bound to any targets by the Paris accord, and is already moving away from Barack Obama’s commitment to cut emissions. It will continue to do so regardless of whether it remains part of the global deal.

There are fears that formal withdrawal could dent the soft-power impact of the agreement. But other major emitters including the European Union and China point out that the US would be as free to rejoin as it is to leave.

The EU and China have vowed that their commitment to tackling climate change will not be affected by the US decision.

While we wait for Trump, here’s a selection of our latest coverage of his decision:




Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael, The Judgment of Paris, the Whitworth, University of Manchester.
The Judgment of Paris, Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael. Photograph: The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

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