After the presidential inauguration on Monday, one of Donald Trump’s first executive orders was to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. The Agreement is a pact implemented in 2016 by almost every nation in the world to combat climate change.
The United States will be one of four countries not in the agreement along with Iran, Libya and Yemen. After officially withdrawing, the US will no longer be legally bound by the requirements of the agreement, according to junior Alisa Houts.
“I think that the agreement gave people hope that progress could be made in combating climate change,” Houts said. “Leaving the agreement may cause that hope to be lost,”
The initial, overarching goal of the Paris Climate was to limit the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and try to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 21) in Paris on Dec. 12, 2015.
The Paris Climate Agreement is enforced by having all parties involved send periodic updates and reports of the actions they are taking to combat climate change. Under the Obama Administration, the US had committed that by 2025, they would cut overall greenhouse gas emissions by 26% below the 2005 levels, according to The White House Archives.
The US has historically been the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, and is currently the second largest emitting 11% of the world’s greenhouse gas. The United States has been in a leadership role in the agreement, as the country with the highest economy and influence, according to junior Piper Leffert.
“The climate crisis is very real and very serious,” Leffert said. “We are seeing the effects in our everyday lives with the temperature increases and rising sea levels across the world,”
Along with ordering the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, Donald Trump has also vowed to prioritize the use of gas and oil over clean energy. Even though the US is the number one producer of gas and oil, Trump’s goal is to boost production of both, according to his official Executive Order.
The Paris Climate Agreement is not a single-state issue. Without global cooperation and compliance, the climate issue cannot be combatted properly. Many environmental groups and climate scientists have harshly criticized Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement given the recent droughts, storms, fires, rising sea levels, and temperatures.
“As a country that is primarily responsible for the greenhouse emissions, I feel that we have a responsibility to be in the agreement,” Houts said. “If we back out, many people may lose hope that the climate crisis can be solved.”
