Trump Is Once Again Quitting The Paris Climate Accords

Last time, quitting the Paris Agreement was largely symbolic. Not this time.

President Donald Trump is once again withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate accords, pulling the nation whose factories, cars and power plants contributed the most cumulative planet-heating pollution to the atmosphere out of the first global pact to slash carbon emissions enough to prevent the world’s average temperature from reaching dangerous new heights.

Trump said Monday he plans to halt implementation of the federal government’s efforts to meet its target to slash America’s greenhouse gas emissions by up to 66% below 2005 levels over the next 10 years. The move, expected to come from an executive order, would follow the approach he took in 2017.

The announcement, made in an email from the White House laying out Trump’s policy priorities, will put the U.S. in league with Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only United Nations-recognized countries outside the global pact.

The next steps include formally announcing the U.S. withdrawal to the U.N. Once that step is taken, the process will go much faster than the last time the U.S. quit the Paris Agreement under Trump’s direction.

Under the U.N. rules at the time, the U.S. withdrawal took three years to take effect, allowing former President Joe Biden to swiftly reinstate American participation in the accords. This time, however, the U.S. could completely quit the Paris Agreement in just one year.