President Donald Trump stressed that the United States under his administration has no intention to continue to lead the efforts against climate change. Trump signed the executive order that will revive the US' reliance on the coal industry, basically scrapping the Obama regime's climate change efforts. Trump also directed the Environmental Protection Agency to ratify and rewrite the Clean Power Plan that was approved during Obama leadership.
Back then, the US pledged to cut harmful emissions by at least 26 percent by the year 2025. The "scrapped" plan laid out the shift from coal-fired power plants into the wind and solar farms. The plan aims to curb global warming and carbon dioxide pollution. However, the White House has already stressed that Trump considers climate change funds as a waste of American money.
The United States is the second-biggest climate polluter in the world behind China. Ironically, China is already stepping into the climate change initiative as they closed the last of the coal-fired power plant in Beijing, The Science Times reported. Now with Trump's denial of climate change, world leaders are scrambling to elevate their commitment to low-carbon economy transition.
The 2015 Paris agreement chief French negotiator, Laurence Tubiana, said that almost every country in the world is committed to reducing global warming. Tubiana called Trump's measures as "short-terminism," more bent on reaping economic benefits as opposed to saving the whole planet from climate change. At any rate, climate diplomats will maneuver to fill the vacuum left by the US, The New York Times reported.
The 2015 Paris agreement aims to peg global warming and avoid it to rise to more than 3.6 degrees. Scientists say that breaching 3.6 degrees will lead to severe droughts, food shortage, rising sea level, and floods. To make it worse, these climate change impacts are going to be irreversible once it starts to happen. However, Trump said that he would prefer the coal miners back in their jobs instead of funding the climate change initiatives.
