President Trump’s withdrawal of the U.S. from the global fight against climate change has gone further than almost anyone expected.
During the first year of his second term in office, the president and his administration have cut foreign aid for climate resilience, pressured countries to delay crucial carbon tax agreements, and removed the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the landmark 2015 accord that saw the world’s nations come together around a plan to limit global warming.
Some of this was anticipated, but on Wednesday Trump took arguably his most dramatic step yet against global climate action. In a brief memorandum, he announced that he would “effectuate the withdrawal” of the U.S. from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, the bedrock treaty that first brought countries together to discuss the climate crisis more than three decades ago.
In other words, Trump hasn’t just skipped out on the world’s plan for tackling climate change — he’s also decreeing that the U.S. will no longer t... Read more
