European leaders and green groups reacted with anger and dismay after President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the United States, the world’s second biggest carbon emitter, was quitting the 2015 Paris Agreement.
But they also pledged to defend the agreement and not to backtrack in the fight against climate change.
In an exceptional step, continental Europe’s three biggest economies; Germany, France and Italy — issued a joint statement in which they criticised Trump’s decision and said the pact was “not renegotiable.”
“We note the United States’ decision with regret,” they said, describing the accord as “a vital tool for our planet, our societies and our economies.”
“We are firmly convinced that the agreement cannot be renegotiated,” they added, referring to part of the Trump announcement which said Washington was open to negotiating a new agreement.
Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the European Union’s executive Commission, lashed Trump’s decision as “seriously wrong.”
The body’s commissioner for climate action and energy Miguel Arias Canete also pledged continued “global leadership” on climate change.
“The EU deeply regrets the unilateral decision by the Trump administration,” he said in a statement.
“The Paris Agreement will endure. The world can continue to count on Europe for global leadership in the fight against climate change.
“Europe will lead through ambitious climate policies and through continued support to the poor and vulnerable,” he added.
In Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed “regret” at the decision, and called for a continuation of “climate policies which preserve our world.”
Seven Social Democratic ministers in her coalition government said the United States “is harming itself, we Europeans and all the people of the world.”
In France, the Elysee presidential palace said newly-elected leader Emmanuel Macron had phoned Trump to say that “nothing was negotiable” in the Paris agreement.
France and the United States “would continue to work together,” but not on climate change, the presidential office said.
AFP
from Punch Newspapers
No comments:
Post a Comment