WASHINGTON
— Momentous arguments inside the West Wing over the future of the Paris
climate accord became a messy public spectacle on Wednesday, with some
aides saying that President Trump had decided to abandon the landmark global warming agreement while others insisted that no decision had been made.
Three
administration officials with direct knowledge of the intense White
House debate said early Wednesday morning that Mr. Trump was expected to
withdraw the United States from the 2015 climate change accord that committed nearly every nation to take action to curb the warming of the planet.
In
addition, three other officials said later Wednesday that they expected
him to withdraw from the agreement, though they said that decision
could still change. Hours later, Mr. Trump said on Twitter that he had
made his decision and would announce it in the Rose Garden at 3 p.m.
Thursday.
The
White House’s legislative affairs office has suggested another route:
Sending the Paris agreement to the Senate for ratification as a treaty.
Since it would require an impossible two-thirds vote, that alternative
would also lead to withdrawal.
Continue
Continue reading the main story
Other
White House insiders disputed those reports, saying that no verdict had
been reached. Mr. Trump, speaking to reporters on Wednesday afternoon,
offered only that “I’m hearing from a lot of people, both ways,” and
promised a decision “very soon.”
With
the world watching nervously, the feuding among the president’s aides
further exposed the fault lines of a chaotic decision-making process
that has swirled around Mr. Trump since he took office.
Signs
have been increasing for weeks that Mr. Trump was heading toward
pulling out of the Paris agreement, apparently believing that a
continued United States presence in the accord would harm the economy;
hinder job creation in regions like Appalachia and the West, where his
most ardent supporters live; and undermine his “America first” message.
Interactive Graphic
The Stakes in the Paris Climate Deal: What Might Other Countries Do?
President Trump will withdraw the United States from the
first worldwide deal to address global warming. Where do other
countries stand on the agreement?
At
home, he faced urgent pleas from corporate leaders, including Tim Cook,
the chief executive of Apple, who told Mr. Trump on Tuesday that
pulling out was wrong for business, the economy and the environment.
Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, threatened to resign from two
White House advisory boards if the president withdrew from the Paris
agreement.
On
his recent trip to Europe, Mr. Trump waved aside a barrage of private
lobbying by other heads of state to keep the United States in the
agreement.
A
frustrated Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European
Commission, said he opposed “behaving as vassals of the Americans” and
assailed Mr. Trump for failing to even understand the mechanics of a
withdrawal, which he said could take three or four years to fulfill.
“This
notion — ‘I am Trump. I am American. America first, so I’m going to get
out of it.’ — that is not going to happen,” Mr. Juncker said. “We tried
to make that clear to Mr. Trump in clear, German principal clauses in
Taormina, but it would appear that he did not understand.”
He added, “Not everything in international agreements is fake news.”
Mr.
Trump has shown a willingness to shift direction up until the moment of
a public announcement. He met on Wednesday with Secretary of State Rex
W. Tillerson, who has advocated that the United States remain a part of
the Paris accord. Other advisers pressing Mr. Trump to remain were
furiously making their case.
In
the past, such appeals have worked. In April, Mr. Trump was set to
announce a withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement, but
at the last minute changed his mind after intense discussions with
advisers and calls from the leaders of Canada and Mexico. Last week, a
senior administration official said Mr. Trump would use a speech in
Brussels to explicitly endorse NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense
provision, which states that an attack on one NATO member is an attack
on all. He did not.
The
exit of the United States, the world’s largest economy and
second-largest greenhouse gas polluter, would not dissolve the
195-nation pact, which was legally ratified last year, but it could set
off a cascade of events that would have profound effects on the planet.
Other countries that reluctantly joined the agreement could now withdraw
or soften their commitments to cutting planet-warming pollution.
“The
actions of the United States are bound to have a ripple effect in other
emerging economies that are just getting serious about climate change,
such as India, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia,” said Michael
Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at
Princeton, and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, a United Nations group that produces scientific reports aimed at
informing global policy makers.
Once
the fallout settles, he added, “it is now far more likely that we will
breach the danger limit of 3.6 degrees” — the average atmospheric
temperature increase above which a future of extreme conditions is
considered irrevocable.
The aim of the Paris agreement was to lower planet-warming emissions enough to avoid that threshold.
“We
will see more extreme heat, damaging storms, coastal flooding and risks
to food security,” Professor Oppenheimer said. “And that’s not the kind
of world we want to live in.”
Foreign
policy experts said the move could damage the United States’
credibility and weaken Mr. Trump’s efforts to negotiate issues far
beyond climate change, like trade and terrorism.
“From
a foreign policy perspective, it’s a colossal mistake — an abdication
of American leadership,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a retired career
diplomat and an under secretary of state for President George W. Bush.
“The
success of our foreign policy — in trade, military, any other kind of
negotiation — depends on our credibility,” Mr. Burns said. “I can’t
think of anything more destructive to our credibility than this.”
But
Mr. Trump’s supporters, particularly coal-state Republicans, have
cheered the move, celebrating it as a fulfillment of a signature
campaign promise. Speaking to a crowd of oil rig workers last year, Mr.
Trump vowed to “cancel” the agreement, and Stephen K. Bannon, Mr.
Trump’s chief strategist, has pushed the president to withdraw from the
accord as part of an economic nationalism that has so far included
pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multilateral trade pact,
and vowing to renegotiate Nafta.
Graphic
Trump Is Hearing Plenty About the Paris Climate Deal. Who Will Have the Last Word?
As President Trump decides whether to stay or leave the
international climate agreement, political and corporate leaders on both
sides of the debate are lobbying him fiercely.
Coal
miners and coal company executives in states such as Kentucky and West
Virginia have pushed for Mr. Trump to reverse all of President Barack
Obama’s climate change policies, many of which are aimed at reducing the
use of coal, considered the largest contributor to climate change.
In
a May 23 letter to Mr. Trump from Attorney General Patrick Morrisey of
West Virginia and nine other state attorneys general, Mr. Morrisey
wrote, “Withdrawing from the Paris agreement is an important and
necessary step toward reversing the harmful energy policies and unlawful
overreach of the Obama era.” He added, “The Paris agreement is a symbol
of the Obama administration’s ‘Washington knows best’ approach to
governing.”
Although
the administration has been debating its position on the Paris
agreement for months, the sentiment for leaving appears to have the
upper hand over the views of Mr. Tillerson and Ivanka Trump, the
president’s daughter and close adviser.
Other countries have vowed to continue to carry out the terms of the Paris agreement, even without the United States.
President
Xi Jinping of China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluter, has
promised that his country will move ahead with steps to curb climate
change, regardless of what happens in the United States.
During
a telephone call in early May with President Emmanuel Macron of France,
according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Mr. Xi told the newly
elected French leader that China and France “should protect the
achievements of global governance, including the Paris agreement.”
But
the accord’s architects say the absence of the United States will
inevitably weaken its chances of being enforced. For example, the
country has played a central role in pushing provisions that require
robust and transparent oversight of how emissions are monitored,
verified and reported.
Without
the United States, there is likely to be far less pressure on major
polluting countries and industries to accurately report their emissions.
There have been major questions raised about the accuracy of China’s
emissions reporting, in particular.
“We
need to know: What are your emissions? Where are your emissions?” said
Todd D. Stern, the lead climate negotiator during the Obama
administration. “There needs to be transparent reporting on countries’
greenhouse gas emissions. If the U.S. is not part of that negotiation,
that’s a loss for the world.”
