US begins process to exit Paris climate deal, submits notice to UN

The Trump administration has formally begun the process of pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement and making the US the only country in the world that will not participate in the pact. The withdrawal will be completed next year by November 4, 2020, after a one-year waiting period has elapsed. Mike Pompeo, the US secretary announced the development on November 04 and has submitted a formal notice to the United Nations. Pompeo in a statement further called the Paris deal an “unfair economic burden” to the US economy. 

"The US approach incorporates the reality of the global energy mix and uses all energy sources and technologies cleanly and efficiently, including fossils fuels, nuclear energy and renewable energy," Pompeo said in a statement. 

The US President Trump at the energy conference in Pittsburg last month publicly affirmed the plans to pull Washington out of the Paris Climate Agreement. At the conference, President Trump talked about his efforts to roll back regulations on energy industries and the growing natural gas and crude oil output in the US. He further talked about his administration's intention to pull the country from the 2015 international climate agreement as the accord would have been shutting down American producers with excessive regulatory restrictions. The US President also believes that the deal was expensive for the country, which is the world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China.

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 Trump faces criticism

Many opponents believe that leaving the agreement would harm US global leadership on the transition to a cleaner economy with technologies to boost wind and solar power. The Elysee palace official has expressed its disappointment. The former vice-president and climate campaigner Al Gore also criticized the move.

He said, “No one person or party can stop our momentum to solve the climate crisis. But those who try will be remembered for their complacency, complicity, and mendacity in attempting to sacrifice the planet for their greed”.

The speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi has also called Trump's move a disastrous decision. Neera Tanden, the president and chief executive of the Center for American Progress, reportedly claimed that instead of projecting strength, the action of pulling out of the Paris agreement might weaken America on the world stage and cede leadership on climate change and other challenges to countries like Russia and China. 

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