There is a press conference scheduled for 3pm ET today in the Rose Garden of the White House where President Trump will announce whether he intends to remain in the Paris climate accord, or to rescind the United States’ involvement and withdraw from it entirely. There had been speculation that the decision has already been made and Trump had decided to pull out, but then the White House pushed back saying a final decision is still forthcoming.
The Associated Press reports:
President Donald Trump will announce his decision on whether to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord during a Rose Garden event Thursday afternoon.
Trump promoted his announcement Wednesday night on Twitter, after a day in which U.S. allies around the world sounded alarms about the likely consequences of a U.S. withdrawal. Trump himself kept everyone in suspense, saying he was still listening to “a lot of people both ways.”
The White House signaled that Trump was likely to decide on exiting the global pact – fulfilling one of his principal campaign pledges – though top aides were divided. And the final decision may not be entirely clear-cut: Aides were still deliberating on “caveats in the language,” one official said.
As a candidate, Trump promised numerous times to “tear up” the Paris climate accord. In fact, back in May of 2016 during a speech on climate change and the economy, Trump promised to literally “cancel the Paris climate agreement” and stop funding United Nations “global warming programs” with US tax dollars:
As the AP story notes, if he does withdraw from the treaty, he’ll have to deal with some steep critics such as other nations with the agreement, corporate entities, and President Obama:
Abandoning the pact would isolate the U.S. from a raft of international allies who spent years negotiating the 2015 agreement to fight global warming and pollution by reducing carbon emissions in nearly 200 nations. While traveling abroad last week, Trump was repeatedly pressed to stay in the deal by European leaders and the Vatican. Withdrawing would leave the United States aligned only with Russia among the world’s industrialized economies.
American corporate leaders have also appealed to the businessman-turned-president to stay. They include Apple, Google and Walmart. Even fossil fuel companies such as Exxon Mobil, BP and Shell say the United States should abide by the deal.
Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, enacted the deal without U.S. Senate ratification. A formal withdrawal would take years, experts say, a situation that led the president of the European Commission to speak dismissively of Trump on Wednesday.
But we know none of those voices really matter to Trump. But there is one that always has his ear:
Trump’s influential daughter Ivanka Trump’s preference is to stay, but she has made it a priority to establish a review process so her father would hear from all sides, said a senior administration official. Like the other officials, that person was not authorized to describe the private discussions by name and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Ivanka has publicly broke with her father on this topic, stating that she thinks the US should remain in the agreement and continue funding climate change research. If her father does indeed withdraw from the pact, look for a consolation prize for Ivanka such as some a domestic climate change task force or funding to study the matter further.
Trump was very clear on this during the campaign that I can’t see him risking such a public “broken promise,” as it will be reported in media on all sides.
We’ll know soon enough, check for an update after 3pm ET for the answer.
Update
As somewhat expected, Trump announces the US is now out of the Paris climate accord:
.@realDonaldTrump: "The United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord" https://t.co/AmXx6His1e pic.twitter.com/gSD1BdgnzS
— POLITICO (@politico) June 1, 2017
