Trump Announced America’s Withdrawal From The Paris Climate Accord

Donald Trump has officially announced the U.S. involvement in the Paris Climate Accord is coming to an end.

"In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and it's citizens," said President Trump. "The United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord."

Fears of this move have been present since the campaign trail, where his speeches frequently mentioned environmental policy shifts, including walking back Obama-era protections in favor of an economy more reliant on fossil fuels. Despite Trump's announcement, CEOs of major companies such as Adobe, Apple, Facebook and Google signed an open letter imploring the President to keep the United States in the Paris agreement.

Former President Barack Obama released a statement saying that "the nations that remain in the Paris Agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created."

"The bottom line is that the Paris Accord is very unfair, at the highest levels, to the United States," said Trump before listing examples of the perceived inequities in the agreement. He continued to say that he would be willing to renegotiate the terms of the Paris accord if it was more fair to the United States. Trump said that he is even willing to work across he isle with Democrats, who he at one point referred to as "obstructionists."

The Paris Climate Accord, when it was created in 2015, was the most ambitious effort yet to reverse some of the effects of climate change, prevent further damage to the environment, and provide aid to communities who were already suffering from rising sea levels and other climate related disasters.

The main goal of the agreement, which includes 196 countries, is to prevent the Earth's temperature from rising two more Celsius degrees. A two degree rise would still have a detrimental impact for many people, but is a goal that would hopefully be attainable if the Paris Climate Accord was effective.

In the anticipation of the Trump administration's withdrawal from the accord, The New York Times reported that other countries are going to double down on their efforts to reduce their environmental impact and move to cleaner sources of energy. Some countries, like the Seychelles, don't have much of a choice. If drastic measures aren't made, their country may succumb to rising seas.