Trump pulls US out of Paris climate agreement

DONALD Trump’s latest call has been labelled a “historic mistake”. Now Arnold Schwarzenegger has unleashed.

President Donald Trump speaks about the US role in the Paris climate change accord. Picture: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

ARNOLD Schwarzenegger has become the latest famous name to attack Donald Trump over his Paris withdrawal, saying: “One man cannot go back in time — only I can do that.”

But the Terminator star had a serious message on climate change, telling the President in a powerful video message “one man cannot stop our clean energy revolution” or “destroy our progress”.

The former Governor of California said that as a public servant, the President’s first responsibility was to “protect the people”, 200,000 of whom die each year from air pollution in the US alone.

“Please Mr President, choose the future,” he begged. “No one remembers the people who told President Kennedy not to go to the Moon. We remember the great leaders.

“The great leaders that don’t walk backwards into the past but great leaders that charge forward towards the future.”

Mr Trump is withdrawing the US from the Paris agreement to curb climate change, in a move critics have slammed as “catastrophic” and “reckless”.

This puts the US at odds with 194 countries — including Australia — that signed up to the deal in 2015, which is designed to slow global warming and rising sea levels.

Malcolm Turnbull said the US decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement was disappointing but not surprising. “We would prefer the United States to remain part of the agreement,” the Prime Minister told reporters in Singapore on Friday. “We are committed to the Paris agreement.”

Barack Obama was quick to attack the decision, as was former vice president Al Gore, who said the withdrawal was “reckless and indefensible”. Hillary Clinton tweeted that it was a “historic mistake”.

John Kerry, a co-signer of the Paris accord, said the President had taken “a self-destructive step” that put America last. The former Secretary of State called the move “an unprecedented forfeiture of American leadership which will cost us influence, cost us jobs and invite other countries to walk away from solving humanity’s most existential crisis.”

America First!
Earth Last! #ParisAgreement pic.twitter.com/O0PixEKCyw

— DER SPIEGEL (@DerSPIEGEL) June 1, 2017

Front page of tomorrow's @NYDailyNews.

"TRUMP TO THE WORLD: DROP DEAD" pic.twitter.com/x2mDwjcTdN

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 1, 2017

He said the decision was “an ignorant, cynical appeal to an anti-science, special-interest faction far outside the mainstream.”

CNN columnist John D Sutter categorised the pullout as “catastrophic both for this country and the planet”.

German news magazine Der Spiegel tweeted an image of its cover with the headline, “The end of the world as we know it” and the caption “America first! Earth last!”

The front page of the New York Daily News was equally direct, claiming Mr Trump had told the world to “drop dead”.

World leaders also turned on the US. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni said in a joint statement on Thursday that they noted “with regret” the US decision to pull out of the 2015 agreement. They added that the course charted by the accord is “irreversible and we firmly believe that the Paris Agreement cannot be renegotiated.”

Mexico said in a statement: “Efforts to slow climate change are a moral imperative, because we owe it to future generations.”

A historic mistake. The world is moving forward together on climate change. Paris withdrawal leaves American workers & families behind.

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 1, 2017

The White House said Mr Trump spoke with the leaders of Germany, France, Canada and Britain on Thursday to explain his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord and thanked the leaders for their “frank, substantive discussions” with him.

The announcement, made Thursday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden, fulfils Mr Trump’s election promise to pull out of the pact, which he has described as a job killer.

“As of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country,” Mr Trump said.

“So we’re getting out but we’ll start to negotiate and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine,” he said.

Mr Trump suggested that other nations were “laughing” at America and that the accord was “about other countries gaining an advantage over the United States”.

US President Donald Trump announces his decision on the Paris Climate Accord in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC. Picture: AFP/Saul Loeb

“At what point does America get demeaned? At what point do they start laughing at us as a country?” Mr Trump said.

“We want fair treatment for its citizens and we want fair treatment for our taxpayers.

“We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore, and they won’t be, they won’t be.

“I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburg, not Paris.”

But the Mayor of Pittsburg has shot back on Twitter, slamming Trump’s decision.

As the Mayor of Pittsburgh, I can assure you that we will follow the guidelines of the Paris Agreement for our people, our economy & future. https://t.co/3znXGTcd8C

— bill peduto (@billpeduto) June 1, 2017

Mr Trump leaves after announcing the US will withdraw from the Paris accord in the Rose Garden of the White House. Picture: AFP/Brendan Smialowski

Washington Governor Jay Inslee told reporters that states are free to act on their own to reduce pollution. Mr Inslee said Washington state, New York and California are forming the United States Climate Alliance, a coalition that will convene states committed to working to uphold the Paris climate agreement.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe said Mr Trump’s decision was a “disgrace”.

The withdrawal puts the US in a dubious club with Nicaragua and Syria as the only countries to reject the agreement.

Mr Trump’s announcement was met with applause from the crowd of supporters gathered in the Rose Garden. The President said the US would endeavour to either re-enter the Paris accord or propose a new deal “on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers”.

“As President, I can put no other consideration before the wellbeing of American citizens,” he said.

“The Paris climate agreement is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers — who I love — and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories and vastly diminished economic production.”

The decision means the US will pull out of the Green Climate Fund, which Mr Trump said cost the country “a vast fortune”.

The United States is going it alone in walking away from the Paris climate agreement, designed to curb climate change. Picture: AP Photo/Jim Cole

Citing a study by the National Economic Research Associates (NERA), the President said compliance with the existing deal would cost the US as many as 2.7 million jobs by 2025.

He said the agreement would “decimate” the coal, steel and car manufacturing industries.

Mr Trump stressed that he “cares deeply” about the environment. “Not only does this deal subject our citizens to harsh economic restrictions, it fails to live up to our environmental ideals,” he said.

“As someone who cares deeply about the environment, which I do, I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States — the world’s leader in environmental protection — while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters.”

Mr Trump said China had been given a free pass to increase its carbon emissions for a “staggering” 13 years.

Mr Obama said the withdrawal meant the Trump administration had made the US one of “a small handful of nations that reject the future”.

Trump's withdrawal from Paris climate deal is latest unilateralist step to harm liberal order, after cancelling TPP and squabbling w NATO.

— Ashley Townshend (@ashleytownshend) June 1, 2017

“I’m confident that our states, cities and businesses will step up and do even more to lead the way and help protect for future generations the one planet we’ve got,” he said in a statement.

Mr Gore, who starred in the climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, said the decision “undermines America’s standing in the world and threatens to damage humanity’s ability to solve the climate crisis in time”.

Even oil companies have voiced opposition to pulling out of the agreement, with Exxon Mobil Corp and ConocoPhillips arguing that the US is better off with a seat at the table so it can influence global efforts to curb emissions, Bloomberg reports.

Walt Disney CEO Robert Iger and Tesla boss Elon Musk both announced their resignation from the President’s Council over the withdrawal.

Weather.com mocked the President today with sarcastic headlines splashed across its homepage. “Hmm, I did not see a forecast for shade when I checked the Weather Channel app this morning. Yet here it is,” tweeted Politico senior editor Alex Weprin.

https://t.co/11qQHPEnKF's home page has all the receipts. pic.twitter.com/C62Lp7durX

— Mitch Goldich (@mitchgoldich) June 1, 2017

UK environmental law firm ClientEarth’s chief executive James Thornton said: “Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement is an act of vandalism that has the potential to do great harm to current and future generations.”

Mr Trump has argued behind closed doors in Washington that the Paris accord was a bad deal for America and was poorly negotiated by the Obama administration.

Before Mr Trump’s official position was made public, Mr Turnbull confirmed Australia would stick to its targets. “When Australia makes a commitment to a global agreement, we follow through and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” the Prime Minister told Parliament.

Critics have argued that Mr Trump’s decision amounts to the US shirking its responsibility as the leader of the free world.