By Sucheta Roy
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement just after some hours he took charge of the office.
Trump has done this during his first term too but his successor Joe Biden got it back four years later.
As, US is the largest contributor of greenhouse gases and the second biggest emitter currently, hence the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement has now become a serious setback to the multilateral climate process which has always been a problem to put together to keep the alarming temperature in check.
There are also high chances that some other countries might follow the direction of the United States. Germany’s far right AFD party, which is supposed to get merged as an influential player in the upcoming national elections, has given hints that it would move out of the Paris Agreement if voted to power.
The Chief of Climate Change, UN, Simon Stiell has said that, “the door will remain open for the United States to come back and it will always encourage and is hoping that the US would change their decision and will return back to the Paris Agreement just like they have done in the past. Stiell has further said that the fear of unraveling the international climate change architecture, has now become real while following the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement for the second time, might indicate the extinction for most of humanity.
Stiell has also highlighted that “the disintegration of the international climate change architecture, which has been represented by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change ( UNFCCC) and its Paris Agreement, would become a disaster”.
“Without the help of the UN process of intergovernmental cooperation, it would go towards up to 5 degrees of global heating, which would become an extinction for most of humanity. We are around 3 degrees of heating, and in the future it will become a disaster for every economy and the people”, which means that the every fraction of a degree counts, every action counts and so, I’m laser focused on ensuring that our process continues to provide a concrete outcomes and a good progress, Stiell said.
Just like the last time, the US government has only withdrawn itself from the Paris Agreement and not from the UNFCCC, which is the mother agreement and it means that the US is still a part of the International process on climate change. However, Trump’s government has not yet disassociated itself from the updated climate action plan that the Joe Biden government had announced before in December.