3 June 2017 12:01 am
By Philip Rucker, Jenna Johnson
President Donald Trump announced Thursday afternoon that he is withdrawing the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement, a move to honor a campaign pledge that dismayed America’s allies and thwarted the global effort to address the warming planet.
Trump’s decision alarmed leaders around the world, drawing swift and sharp condemnation from foreign officials as well as top U.S. environmentalists and corporate titans, who decried the U.S. exit from the Paris accord as an irresponsible abdication of American leadership.
But Trump cast his decision as a “reassertion of America’s sovereignty,” arguing that the climate pact as negotiated under President Barack Obama was grossly unfair to the U.S. workers he had vowed to protect with his populist “America First” campaign platform.
The United States now joins only two countries - Nicaragua and Syria - in opposing a climate agreement reached by all other nations in 2015. A signature diplomatic achievement for President Obama, the Paris accord was celebrated at the time as a universal response to the global warming crisis.
(c) 2017, The Washington Post ·· Jun 02, 2017 - WASHINGTON -