Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday June 2, 2017
Trump announces U.S. will withdraw from Paris climate accord
U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will withdraw from the Paris agreement on climate change.
April 11, 2017
At a news conference in the White House Rose Garden on Thursday afternoon, Trump said the accord is “very unfair to the United States.”
“In order to fulfil my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.”
Trump said his country would either renegotiate its re-entry into the Paris agreement under different terms, or participate in the creation of a whole new climate deal.
March 8, 2017
White House officials had signalled withdrawal was likely to reporters, but Trump has been known to change his mind at the last minute on major decisions, as happened recently with the NAFTA trade deal.
Abandoning the accord was one of Trump’s principal campaign pledges, but America’s allies have expressed alarm about the likely consequences.
April 20, 2017
The Paris agreement was struck in 2015 and months later, the U.S. and China jointly said they would sign off on the deal. The agreement went into effect for the U.S. in November 2016.
Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, has criticized Trump’s resistance to the deal, saying the U.S. president doesn’t understand the fine print of the agreement and that the process of formally withdrawing could take two to three years. (Source: CBC News)