On December 12, 2015, countries adopting the Paris Agreement at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris. The agreement went into effect on November 4, 2016. The United States and China both represent 40% of global emissions and signing this agreement with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to combat the threat of climate change by keeping the global temperature rise this century below 2 degrees Celsius. By agreeing to this, countries will confront climate change and will intensify the actions needed for a low carbon future and to adapt to the increasing of impacts of climate change. This agreement will also strengthen the ability for countries to deal with impacts of climate change.
On June 1st, President Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.The United States is the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases and walking away from this agreement; the UNFCCC will not be able to achieve its goal of limiting global warming to below a 3.6-degree Fahrenheit. Although the U.S. initially wasn’t the only country that opposed the climate agreement reached by all other nations in 2015, U.S. is now the only country that is not a part of the climate agreement. Syria and Niagara both announced plans to join the Paris climate accord whereas Trump has isolated the U.S.
This is not a surprising move as Trump has labeled climate change a “coax.” He also appointed the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, who is not convinced that climate change is caused by CO2 emissions by humans. Coincidence? I think not.
On top of the head of the EPA not believing in climate change, Pruitt wants to cut the budget in his department and believes “we can fulfill the mission of our agency with a trimmed budge, with proper leadership and management.” With this “trimmed” budget the amount would cut from more than 31 percent ($2.4 billion annually) a larger percent than any federal agency. This is ridiculous considering that being the head of the federal agency, you’d want a larger budget to support what you believe in, in this case, the environment. But Pruitt instead wants to lower the budget for the EPA. This would potentially get rid of the EPA’s national and regional programs or even the employees, but members of both parties resisted stating that EPA’s work was crucial to environmental protection. The agency would also have fewer funds for prosecuting environmental crimes or climate change due to the “trimmed” budget. This completely contradicts why the EPA was created because now the environment is being threatened because the government and EPA are harming the environment more than it is protecting it.
Trump’s argument for withdrawing from the Paris Agreement is that he “was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” He believes joining the Paris Agreement would put the United States at a disadvantage and says that the rest of the world celebrated because it would put the U.S. “at a very, very big economic disadvantage.” Trump believes that the EPA has spent taxpayer dollars for too long which has destroyed millions of jobs and undermining many businesses and industries. By defunding the EPA, he believes that Pruitt will reverse the trend of destroying jobs and undermining industries while keeping our air and water clean.
Although Trump said that we could, “conceivably go back in…” because he “feels strongly about the environment.” He, however, continues to say that the agreement was a “bad deal” during the Obama administration and that the Paris accord was unfair towards to the U.S. and penalized us, “took away our asset values,” and would take “away our competitive edge.” Because Trump and the head of the EPA do not believe in climate change, their focus on clean air and clean water are only short-term whereas climate change is something that will affect future generations.
Paris Agreement / EPA
Paris Agreement / EPA
By: Tiffany Lei
By: Tiffany Lei