Trump Withdraws United States from Paris Agreement
President Donald Trump has signed an Executive Order to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement, a key international treaty on climate, for a second time.
Following his inauguration yesterday, Trump signed a series of executive orders, including one to exit the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
This move comes as no surprise, in a repeat of the 47th President’s actions in 2017. However, last time the process took three years, with the decision only taking effect in November 2020 - an action reversed by Joe Biden in January 2021 upon his entrance to the White House. This time, the US will have to wait at least a year to be officially removed from the climate pact.
Two weeks before leaving office, Biden took action to protect over 625 million acres of the US’ ocean from future oil and natural gas leasing. Yesterday, Trump declared a ‘national energy emergency’, sounding his tagline “drill baby, drill”, and vowing to reverse many of the climate regulations brought in by the Biden-Harris administration.
Within the Executive Order ‘Unleashing American Energy’, all agencies are ordered to immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the largest investment in clean energy in the country’s history. Trump also signed an executive order to eliminate the ‘electrical vehicle (EV) mandate’. This includes revoking the 50% EV by 2030 target and consideration of removing subsidies in favour of EVs, such as the $7,500 consumer tax credit for new EVs.
In the last eight years since Trump first assumed the presidency, catastrophic extreme weather events have become increasingly frequent worldwide, and global temperatures surpassed 1.5°C for the first time.
Yet, investments in clean energy are growing rapidly. As of 2024, global investment in clean energy was almost double the amount invested in fossil fuels. In the US, $272 billion was invested across the manufacture and deployment of clean energy, clean vehicles, building electrification and carbon management technology. This is over three times the investment in 2018, signaling that, despite a new era of anti-climate policy in the US, clean energy is still seen as a key driver of economic growth.
