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President Donald Trump plans to make good on his campaign vow to withdraw the United States from a global pact to fight climate change, a source briefed on the decision said on Wednesday, a move that promises to deepen a rift with U.S. allies.
White House officials cautioned that details were still being hammered out and that, although close, the decision on withdrawing from the 195-nation accord - agreed to in Paris in 2015 - was not finalized.
[...] The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump was working out the terms of the planned withdrawal with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, an oil industry ally and climate change doubter.
[...] The CEOs of Dow Chemical Co, ExxonMobil Corp, Unilever NV and Tesla Inc all urged Trump to remain in the agreement, with Tesla's Elon Musk threatening to quit White House advisory councils of which he is a member if the president pulls out.
Source: Reuters
On Twitter, Trump indicated that an announcement was coming soon.
"I will be announcing my decision on the Paris Accord over the next few days," he wrote. "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
[...] Opponents of the climate deal were concerned after White House economic advisor Gary Cohn told reporters that the president was "evolving on the issue" during his trip overseas.
His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly channelled support for the deal behind the scenes at the White House, encouraging climate change activists that Trump might change his mind. Trump's Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon CEO, also supported remaining in the treaty.
Source: Brietbart
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Thursday June 01 2017, @06:30AM (2 children)
Another approach is that Trump withdraws and the rest of the world sets up customs fees, lets call it CO2 compensation tax.
Speaking of CO2, these present permafrost dethawing near the north pole is serious business. If it reaches the runaway point such that releases CH4 increases the release of more CH4 due to the fact that CH4 is way more potent than CO2.
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Thursday June 01 2017, @11:53AM (1 child)
I'd like to see something like this as the partner to globalization. Sure we'll trade with China, the US, whomever, but there will be environmental and ethical surcharges applied. As countries, and industries within those countries, clean up, the surcharges get lowered. The true cost of our consumption needs to be internalized, and if that plastic thingamabob at Walmart cost $14 instead of $2.99, people would think twice about buying it.
Of course this isn't going to happen because the process will be politicized, and the US will put an environmental surcharge on Canadian softwood lumber because Canada is building too many cars in its factories or something unrelated to the environmental cost of Canadian softwood lumber, and so on. Canadians aren't a shining world example of environmentalism either, so a system like this might convince us to clean up our act too.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 02 2017, @12:40AM
US pays customs fee for CO2 pollution and China pays customs fee for human abuse. That could work ;)
What needs to happen is to make manufacturers use production that pollutes less such that the plastic thingamabob at Walmart cost $5 instead of $2.99, and people can handle the cost. And the environment is sustained.
Maybe China will have the first self inflicted environmental disaster great enough to change policy. Another possibility is change of people at the top.