The world is bracing for President-elect Donald Trump to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement for the second time — only this time, he could move faster and with less restraint.
Trump’s vow to pull out would once again leave the United States as one of the only countries not to be a party to the 2015 pact, in which nearly 200 governments have made non-binding pledges to reduce their planet-warming pollution. His victory in last week’s election threatens to overshadow the COP29 climate summit that begins on Monday in Azerbaijan, where the U.S. and other countries will hash out details related to phasing down fossil fuels and providing climate aid to poorer nations.
The United States’ absence from the deal would put other countries on the hook to make bigger reductions to their climate pollution. But it would also raise inevitable questions from some countries about how much more effort they should put in when the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas polluter is walking away.
“Countries are very committed to Paris, I don’t think there’s any question about that,” said David Waskow, head of the World Resources Institute’s international climate initiative. “What I do think is at risk is whether the world is able to follow through on what it committed to in Paris.”
