US President Donald Trump. Photo/courtesy.
Since U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order pulling his country out of Paris Agreement, experts now warns that this move is likely to clow back the gains against climate change.
With U.S. being one of the biggest economies in the world, its decision will influence other countries to exit the agreement.
What is Paris agreement
Paris agreement is a crucial international consensus that was put on paper in the year 215, this agreement brought tother 196 countries and has been very pivotal in supporting climate actions while tackling climate problems around the world. This agreement has also played a major role in preparing nations deal with climate related issues at the same time establishing frameworks for clear tracking, reporting and analyzing nations, and individual collective climate targets.
Jack Mazingira who claims to having over 8 years of experience in climate and environmental rights and advocacy who is also founder of Towards green Environment believes that the need to address climate change is urgent, but with major financers as U.S. pulling off such important projects could prove to be catastrophic.
“My live experience from flood prone areas in Kenya has been instrumental in my passion towards climate justice, I have dedicated myself to learning more climate through education and working with affected communities, the need to address climate change is urgent and crucial,” he said.
According to Jack, USA has been a major player in promoting the Paris agreement agenda despite they having the lowest contribution for climate finance of any developed country relative to its gross national income (GNI) at 0.03 per cent. He further adds that US financing has always influenced climate change research and improved society’s chance of achieving the objectives of the agreement.
“Historically, the USA played a significant role in promoting the Paris agreement agenda despite the country having the lowest provision for climate finance of any developed country compared to its Gross National Income at 0.03 per cent. They have always influenced climate change research and boosted society’s chance of achieving the Paris agreement objectives,” Jack noted.
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Jack maintains that Previously, US Government has shared the same believes on climate change as other Paris agreement member state and thus have always tailored their own policies to support the Paris agreement. He adds that, while developing nations continue to improve their mitigation efforts to move towards economy wide targets, developed nations have continued to take the lead by committing to absolute economy-wide reduction targets, while helping the developing countries by providing necessary finance, knowledge, technology and transfer of assistance on policy reform as well as capacity building.
What US withdrawal means
Many financial experts as well as climate enthusiasts have shown concerns over this move by US president to have US withdrawn from the Agreement, they believe that the result would be to the negative.
Jack told JEDCA MEDIA that this move will impact both global and local climate goals across the world, it will affect the global research on climate change hence being detrimental to speeding up solutions to climate action.
“President Trump decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement will have cascading impacts on global climate action and goals. The termination of the $3 billion US climate financing will ultimately affect research on climate change and reduce society chances of achieving Paris agreement objectives.”
He further adds that, this move could deny US the chance to influence the world changes as a superpower, this could give an opportunity to other states to fill the vacant hence benefiting, he says this could be detrimental to US and in future could prevent them from taking part in global markets and carrying out exchanges in terms of clean energy.
“Withdrawing its obligation under Paris agreement is depriving US off the chance to influence the global shifts to sustainable energy. The void created will be filled by other nations and groups and benefit from it. For America, policy backlash and exclusion from the agreement creates uncertainty and may eventually prevent them competing in global market of investing in clean energy and resilience,” he said.
