Hundreds Of US Businesses Urge Trump To Uphold Paris Climate Deal

The extraordinary speed at which the Paris accord was enacted into law was driven in part by concerns among world leaders that Trump, if elected, could prevent the us from participating.

So what gives? The White House said Wednesday the “We the People” platform is meant to address federal policy decisions, not personnel decisions made by an incoming administration.

It is safe to say that climate and environmental policy is on shaky ground; this is at a time when we desperately need progress.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has been open with his view on climate change being a hoax and Trump has selected climate skeptic Myron Ebell to lead the EPA transition.

During the campaign, Trump framed the “Clean Power Plan”, which promises a almost 32% reduction in domestic greenhouse emissions by 2030, as a job-killer he would be quick to scuttle.

China’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin repudiated Trump’s accusation on Wednesday, telling reporters at United Nations talks in Marrakesh, Morocco, that U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush started the global warming conversation by supporting the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change during the late 1980s, according to Bloomberg News.

“Trump’s policy pledge follows the GOP platform committee’s demand for “.an immediate halt to US funding for the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in accordance with the 1994 Foreign Relations Authorization Act”.

Before his election, Trump called climate change a “hoax” perpetrated by China and vowed to “cancel” the hard-fought Paris Agreement concluded a year ago to limit unsafe global warming.

“What we do know is the Clean Power Plan is just one factor driving a market that is already undergoing significant transformation”, Ganesan said. As he appoints his cabinet, the people he puts in charge of energy, the environment, and the interior will be key indicators whether he plans to continue this dismissive tone. “Whether it’s on ambitious adaptation or mitigation action, they are the location where the action materializes, where the decisions on resource flows are made”.

Trump will also single-handedly have the power to withdraw the US from global climate talks and agreements following years of leadership by President Obama.

Without much more effort to reduce emissions immediately we know the world can not meet the Paris goals on temperature increase. But Trump has been steadfast in embracing coal energy and other climate changing fossil fuels.

For the 2018 conference, meanwhile, the host city will be expected to cover much of the cost to host the event as well as to secure support from its national government. At least four times on Twitter, the NY businessman has referred to global warming as a “hoax”. “The national security community has focused on the intersection of climate risk and security for over a decade”, says retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral David Titley said in a statement. We can compare that target to the one from the European Union, which is “at least 40 percent domestic greenhouse gas emissions reductions below 1990 levels by 2030”.

China is reminding the president-elect of the United States that they didn’t make up global warming, really. “As a matter of worldwide law, and as a matter of human survival, the nations of the world can, must, and will hold the United States to its climate commitments”. This seems to conflict directly with the responsibilities of Donald Trump the president.

This article was previously published by Diálogo Chino.