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Calling the Paris climate agreement a “self-inflicted, major economic wound,” President Donald Trump said June 1 that the U.S. will withdraw from the deal signed by 194 other countries.
Trump said he will begin negotiations to re-enter the Paris accords on terms that put the U.S. back on a level playing field.
The president, speaking in the White House Rose Garden, said other signatories of the deal “went wild they were so happy” when the U.S. committed to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Other nations were pleased “for the simple reason that it put our country at a very, very big disadvantage,” he said. “We would find it very hard to compete with other countries.”
RELATED: Politicians, Businesses, Anglers Sound Off On Trump’s Paris Decision
In September 2016, former President Barack Obama formally entered the Paris Accords, which committed the U.S. to reducing 2020 emissions by about 17% compared to 2005 levels.
In 2015, U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions were already 12% below the 2005 levels, mostly because of electric power generation fueled by natural gas instead of coal. However, emission reductions are projected to rise steeply in the following decades, with 30% reductions by 2025 and 42% reductions by 2030.
Many organizations, politicians—Democrat and Republican—and businesses had urged Trump to remain in the agreement.
In March, ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) sent a letter to Trump saying that the U.S. was “well positioned to compete within the framework of the Paris Agreement, with abundant low-carbon resources such as natural gas and innovate private industries including the oil, gas and petrochemical sectors.”
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, said in an email that while some large oil and natural gas companies have urged the president to stay in the treaty, the negative impacts on the U.S. would have been enormous and amounted to a fundamental reordering of not just energy, but the entire economy.
Trump said the agreement amounted to a “massive redistribution of United States wealth to other countries.”
Sgamma said she welcomed news that “the unratified treaty conflicted with the administration’s plans to increase American development of the energy that actually powers the country.”
Adjusted for inflation, the U.S. economy in 2015 was 15% larger than it was in 2005, but the U.S. energy intensities and carbon intensities both declined, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Sgamma noted that “our industry is responsible for 62% of the emissions reductions in the electricity sector, compared to just 38% for wind, solar and other non-carbon generation, according to the Energy Information Administration.”
“On a per-dollar of gross domestic product (GDP) basis, in 2015, the United States used 15% less energy per unit of GDP and produced 23% fewer energy-related CO₂ emissions per unit of GDP, compared with the energy and emissions per dollar of GDP in 2005,” the EIA said.
Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said: “this decision will live in infamy.”
“President Trump has chosen to retreat. It is a course that defies logic, ignores overwhelming scientific evidence, and disregards the advice of more than 1,000 business leaders who urged him to stand up for climate action and our clean energy economy,” he said.
Trump said the U.S. will immediately withdraw from all non-binding aspects of the Paris agreement, including financial contributions to the Green Climate Fund, which was established to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries.
Darren Barbee can be reached at dbarbee@hartenergy.com.
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