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After three years of Donald Trump’s announcement of plans to abandon the Paris Agreement, The United States is officially out of the global climate pact as of this Wednesday.
The US president announced the exit plan in June 2017, but United Nations (UN) regulations ensured that this decision did not go into effect until Wednesday, November 4, 2020, the day after the elections. presidential elections in the United States. UNITED STATES.
Under the rules of the Paris Agreement, any country that wants to withdraw has to wait three years. The United States submitted official documents to withdraw on November 4 of last year, which means that the one-year reflection period expired at midnight Wednesday, coincidentally, at the same time that Americans await the results. electoral
This 2015 climate agreement, between 197 countries, aims to curb, or at least slow down, global warming and ensure that it stays below 2ºC, in an effort to try to limit it to 1.5ºC.
The US exit will represent the absence of the second largest pollutant on the planet and the largest climate geopolitical economy in the agreement, which is not beneficial to advance in the reduction of emissions.. At the same time, the US resignation means that major fossil fuel producers, such as Brazil, Saudi Arabia, India and Australia, do nothing to reduce polluting emissions.
The US State Department will cease to be an active member of the UN climate meetings under the Paris agreement., but you will be allowed to participate as an observer and will remain a member of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate.
What can change after the elections?
Americans are still waiting for the results of the vote to find out who will assume the presidency of the United States in the next four years. The same day, his departure from the Paris Climate Agreement becomes official. However, the regulation of the climate pact allows the country to rejoin the Paris Agreement in the future if the White House wants to change the decision.
The decision to withdraw from the climate agreement was made by the current president, Donald Trump. But Democratic candidate Joe Biden promised to re-sign the deal on the first day in the White House. – which can happen through a short executive order, accepting the deal on behalf of the US, as Barack Obama did in 2016. But for that, the US would also have to present a formal emission reduction plan .
The re-election of Donald Trump will keep the country out of that agreement, at least for another four years, as the Republican promised in campaign rallies and television interviews.
Biden presented a nearly € 1.5 billion plan for the United States to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. On the other hand, since he came to the White House, Trump has defended the fossil fuel industry, criticizing scientists for the thesis. on global warming.
If Trump gets a second term, upholding environmental laws will have to happen at the state and local policy level, even without the support of the federal government. But if Biden wins, the United States will have to officially notify the United Nations of its desire to return to the Paris Agreement.
For example, President Bill Clinton was unable to secure the Senate’s support for the Kyoto Protocol, agreed in 1997. So, in preparation for the Paris climate negotiations, President Barack Obama’s negotiators wanted to make sure he took time for the US. .UU. To leave if there was a change of leadership.
Although the agreement was signed in December 2015, the treaty only entered into force on November 4, 2016, 30 days after at least 55 countries representing 55 percent of global emissions have ratified it. As of that date, no country may decide to abandon the agreement before three years have elapsed from the date of ratification.
Even so, a member state that decided to renounce the agreement still had to meet a 12-month notice period at the UN, so this Wednesday the United States was officially left out of the Paris Agreement.
The UN fears that the departure of the United States will lead other countries to adopt slower measures against global warming, at a time when scientists are calling for all efforts to be accelerated.
