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The project had been around for a long time, now it’s official: The United States is no longer a member of the Paris Climate Agreement.
The rescission went into effect Wednesday at midnight New York time, as previously stated by the UN Climate Change Secretariat, four years after the landmark agreement to limit climate change took effect and one year later. for the United States government to formally resign.
▶ ︎ The United States is the first and so far only country to abandon the climate agreement. In 2015, at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris, the world community agreed to limit climate change to well below two degrees. A year later, enough states had already ratified the agreement for it to go into effect. Certain implementation details are still being negotiated, but generally the rules are in place.
However, so far, states’ plans to save greenhouse gases are still far from sufficient to meet the two-degree goal. The consequences of the climate crisis can already be felt around the world, including rising sea levels, an increased risk of droughts, heat waves, severe storms and floods, but also the melting of glaciers and ice in the poles or the death of coral reefs.
→ The German government regretted the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement and believes that Europe and Germany are more committed to protecting the climate. For international climate policy, it is “very regrettable” that the United States officially left on Wednesday, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in Berlin on Wednesday. It remains “even more important” that the EU and Germany “lead by example”.
Seibert recalled Germany’s commitment to become climate neutral by 2050, that is, the conclusion that it would no longer emit greenhouse gases, the corresponding European Union plan, and the ongoing debate on tightening the climate protection target by 2030. Many countries were on the way to achieving a more climate-friendly economy, Seibert said. This also applies to many US states, cities, towns, businesses, and organizations.
