“The actions of the United States are bound to have a ripple effect in other emerging economies
that are just getting serious about climate change, such as India, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton, and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that produces scientific reports aimed at informing global policy makers.
World Awaits Trump Decision on U. S. Future in Paris Accord -
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and CORAL DAVENPORTMAY 31, 2017
WASHINGTON — Momentous arguments inside the West Wing over the future of the Paris climate accords became a messy public spectacle on Wednesday, with some aides saying
that President Trump had decided to abandon the landmark global warming agreement while others insisted that no decision had been made.
In a May 23 letter to Mr. Trump from Attorney General Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia
and nine other state attorneys general, Mr. Morrisey wrote, “Withdrawing from the Paris agreement is an important and necessary step toward reversing the harmful energy policies and unlawful overreach of the Obama era.” He added, “The Paris agreement is a symbol of the Obama administration’s ‘Washington knows best’ approach to governing.”
Although the administration has been debating its position on the Paris agreement for months, the sentiment for leaving appears to have the upper hand over the views of Mr. Tillerson
and Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and close adviser.
Three administration officials with direct knowledge of the intense White House debate said early Wednesday morning
that Mr. Trump was expected to withdraw the United States from the 2015 climate change accord that committed nearly every nation to take action to curb the warming of the planet.
Speaking to a crowd of oil rig workers last May, Mr. Trump vowed to “cancel” the agreement, and Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, has pushed the president to withdraw from the accord as part of an economic nationalism
that has so far included pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multilateral trade pact, and vowing to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.