Obama Climate Envoy Slams Trump's Rejection Of Paris Agreement
Faizan Hashmi Published November 16, 2017 | 10:45 PM
The Obama-era official who helped deliver the 2015 Paris Agreement, lashed out Thursday at the Donald Trump administration's "wrongheaded" decision to abandon the first-ever pact committing all countries to limiting climate change
Bonn, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Nov, 2017 ) :The Obama-era official who helped deliver the 2015 Paris Agreement, lashed out Thursday at the Donald Trump administration's "wrongheaded" decision to abandon the first-ever pact committing all countries to limiting climate change.
Todd Stern, who was Barack Obama's special envoy for climate change, said he was "annoyed, frustrated" by the new president's rejection of a deal that took the world's nations more than two decades to negotiate.
"It's completely wrongheaded thing to do," Stern, who left the state department in 2016, told AFP on the sidelines of a UN climate conference in Bonn which he attended as an observer. "Climate change is a huge challenge, we all know that," he said.
"We are in a... race against time to transform the economy faster than the bad stuff of climate change," he said. "Trying to say it's a hoax, or it doesn't mean anything, or it's a terrible agreement and the rest of the world is laughing at us, is just so..
ridiculous." Obama was a champion of the deal which America ratified just two months before Trump, who has described climate change as a "hoax", was elected to the White House. Trump announced in June that America would abandon the pact, but the rules determine this cannot happen until November 2020.
The United States is the world's biggest historical greenhouse gas polluter, and second only to China for current-day emissions. This week, Syria became the 196th country to formally adopt the Paris Agreement, leaving America as the only nation in the UN climate convention to reject it.
The pact commits countries to limiting average global warming to under two degrees Celsius (3.
6 degrees Fahrenheit) over Industrial Revolution levels, and 1.5 C if possible, to avert calamitous climate change-induced storms, drought and sea-level rises.
To bolster the agreement, nations submitted voluntary commitments to curb emissions. But the 1 C mark has already been passed, and analysts say the world is headed for a 3 C-warmer world, or more, on current country pledges.
- 'More angry than sad' - While waiting to exit the deal, Washington is participating in the UN climate talks, where envoys are working out "rules" for putting the agreement into action. Not all have welcomed the presence of the Americans in their midst, and Stern said Trump's decision "inevitably undermines the credibility and...
strength of the US team." He also criticised the White House hosting a sideline event at the talks on Monday, where administration officials and energy company executives defended continued fossil fuel use.
"Do I think it's constructive to do an event on coal? No, obviously not," said Stern, now a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think-tank. Having invested more than seven years in negotiating the Paris Agreement, Stern said he felt "more angry than sad" at the way things have turned out -- "annoyed, frustrated".
"Ideologues thought it was a good idea, and some of the president's so-called base supporters thought it was a good idea, but you have to look pretty hard to find informed people, companies... who thought that was a good idea," he said.
Related Topics
Recent Stories
HEC reviews curricula for environmental sciences degree programme
ICC Asia looking forward to an action-packed Asia Cricket Week
Yuvraj Singh named ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 Ambassador
Greece hands Olympic flame to 2024 Paris Games hosts
Two Kyiv hospitals evacuating over feared Russian strikes
World must act on neurotech revolution, say experts
Charles & Catherine's cancer diagnoses
Champions Alcaraz and Sabalenka through in Madrid Open
King Charles to resume some public duties during cancer treatment: palace
US defense chief announces $6 bn in security aid for Ukraine
Heavy rains cause damage to Spezand-Taftan railway track
Woman stabbed in Israel, attacker killed: police
More Stories From World
-
Tennis: ATP/WTA Madrid Open results - collated
13 minutes ago -
PGA Zurich Classic of New Orleans scores
13 minutes ago -
Sudanese filmmakers shine light on war's 'silent problems'
13 minutes ago -
NFL will allow players to wear Guardian Cap helmets in games
7 hours ago -
Football: German Bundesliga table
7 hours ago -
Football: Italian Serie A result
7 hours ago
-
Football: German Bundesliga results
7 hours ago -
US troops to leave Chad in second African state withdrawal
7 hours ago -
Plastics pollution may be solved without production cap: Canada minister
7 hours ago -
Biden stalls on menthol cigarette ban fearing Black vote backlash
7 hours ago -
Champions Alcaraz and Sabalenka through in Madrid Open
7 hours ago -
6,000 French police to welcome Olympic torch amid bonus boost
8 hours ago