The United States, the world's second largest polluter behind China, had already left briefly under the Republican's first term, before Joe Biden made their return. This new withdrawal should come into force in a year.
Donald Trump on Monday initiated a new withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate agreement, a complete step backwards in the fight against climate change which endangers global efforts to slow it down. The Republican, a notorious climate skeptic, kept his word by signing a presidential decree on his first day back in power and then a letter to the United Nations to this effect. “I am immediately withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, an unfair and unilateral scam”Donald Trump said in front of thousands of people gathered in a Washington stadium, before signing the documents in front of them. “The United States will not sabotage its own industries while China pollutes with impunity”he continued.
Concluded under the aegis of the United Nations almost ten years ago, the Paris agreement brings together almost all the world's states and aims to keep global warming below a certain threshold by considerably reducing greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse. The United States, the world's second largest polluter behind China, had already left briefly under the Republican's first term, before Joe Biden made their return. This new withdrawal should come into force in a year.
Donald Trump's inability to understand the significance of this moment is as incomprehensible as it is cruel. »
Ben Jealous, director of the environmental NGO Sierra Club
“Donald Trump’s inability to understand the significance of this moment is as incomprehensible as it is cruel”castigated Ben Jealous, director of the environmental NGO Sierra Club, in a press release sent to AFP. The United States, the world's leading economic power and historic polluter, had the “deep moral obligation” d’“act as courageously as possible” pour “avoid the worst of the climate crisis”.
-In a series of decrees, Donald Trump announced a host of other measures mainly aimed at unraveling his predecessor's record. The new president thus ordered federal agencies to reject the international financial commitments made on climate by the previous administration and to end aid allocated to the purchase of electric vehicles. He also decreed a state of“energy emergency” aimed at boosting oil and gas production in the United States, already the world's leading producer, by notably reversing drilling bans in several areas, including one in a protected area in Alaska. “We will become a rich nation again and that is gold (noir) liquid under our feet that will help us”he proclaimed earlier during his inauguration speech.
Other measures, such as a moratorium on the development of wind farms and a dismantling of Joe Biden's flagship climate law known as the “IRA”, which allowed large investments in clean energy, have been announced. Some of these actions, however, may require Congressional intervention and be challenged in court.
“An advantage” to be seized in renewable energies
While the past two years have been the warmest on record globally, this setback is expected to significantly slow the trajectory of declines in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to expert projections. It also poses the risk that other major polluters, such as China and India, will reduce their environmental ambitions or even leave the Paris agreement. Although no country has so far followed Washington in this direction, the Argentine government of ultraliberal President Javier Milei – an ally of Donald Trump – recently said “reevaluate” its position on the matter.
“The door remains open”assured the head of the UN Climate Change, Simon Stiell, after the Trump administration's announcement. If this withdrawal is «regrettable»it does not mean the end of this multilateral action, insisted Laurence Tubiana, architect of the Paris agreement. “The current context is very different from that of 2017. The global transition is benefiting from unstoppable economic momentum.” The renewable energy sector continues to grow, notes Simon Stiell, for whom it is the “good economic deal of the decade”. “Ignoring it is tantamount to leaving this wealth to competing economies.” If investments in this area should continue on a local scale, the withdrawal of the United States could thus give China and the European Union “an advantage”estimates Ani Dasgupta, director of the American think tank World Resources Institute.
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