One of President Donald Trump’s first mandates upon regaining the White House seat was withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, an international treaty concerning climate change.
According to a report on Magandang Umaga Pilipinas, the US President believes the agreement to be detrimental to the American economy. He had also pulled the country out of the agreement during his first term, which former President Joe Biden reversed.
As per the agreement, member states are obliged to minimize greenhouse gas emissions, their efforts ultimately aimed at alleviating rising global temperatures.
“I’m immediately withdrawing from the unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord rip-off,” Trump declared after being sworn in. “The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity.”
The reelected President felt it unjust that millions of Americans should lose their jobs while large countries such as India and China continually exacerbate environmental degradation without consequence.
He also announced a “national energy emergency,” entailing increased oil and gas production.
“The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices, and that is why today I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill,” Trump said.
“America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth, and we are going to use it,” he added.
Trump has sent the United Nations a formal letter regarding his intention to leave the agreement, which, in line with its rules, America will officially be removed from in a year.
Critics have spoken out against the move. Rachel Cleetus, from the Union of Concerned Scientists, said, “Withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement is a travesty,” proclaiming it “shows an administration cruelly indifferent to the harsh climate change impacts that people in the United States and around the world are experiencing.”
