THE United States officially withdrew last Wednesday, November 5, from the Paris Climate Change Agreement drawn up by the world’s nations in 2015. It was at the end of a one-year notice of withdrawal that President Donald Trump had sent to the UN on November 4, 2019.
The US will thus have no part in the United Nations Climate Summit to be hosted by the United Kingdom in Glasgow, Scotland, this December 12 on the fifth anniversary of the historic Paris agreement. In that conference, 185 nations of the world, including the Philippines, submitted individual plans to help reduce the carbon emissions from industries around the world, which were raising the world’s temperature, melting the polar glaciers, and raising ocean levels.
US President Donald Trump had officially given notice of US withdrawal from the world agreement last year, although it is the second biggest producer of polluting carbon emissions – next to China. But President Trump, a champion of the fossil fuel industry, does not believe in the threat of climate change. And so, alone among all the world’s nations, the US rejected the agreement reached by 185 nations and all its recommendations.
But, in the wake of the recent US presidential election, with Democratic candidate Joe Biden declared winner, although unofficially, over Republican candidate Trump, the US rejection of the Paris Agreement may not last long.
“Today, the Trump administration officially left the Paris Climate Agreement,” Biden said Thursday. “In exactly 77 days, a Biden administration will rejoin it.” That would bring the US back into the ranks of the world’s nations struggling to solve the problem of world climate change.
Two nations have already announced their plans and commitments to help meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. Last September 22, President Xi Jinping of China announced in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly that China would end its carbon emissions by 2060. Soon afterwards, on October26, Prime Minister Yoshide Suga made the same pledge for Japan, with an earlier goal –2050.
Last Thursday, Biden said a Biden administration would set aside a $1.7-trillion budget to achieve its goal of zero carbon emission by the year 2050. With these definite commitments and deadlines set by China, US, and Japan – the world’s top sources of carbon emissions – the coming Glasgow conference assumes greater significance.
“The climate emergency is upon us and we have no time to waste,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, amid signs that the world is off-track in its goal of limiting global temperatures rises to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The recent commitments made by China, the US, and Japan should help to lift the spirits of conference officials.
