EU, China to reaffirm support for climate pact

He said in February in connection with a trip to the White House that he wanted “to provide feedback on issues that I think are important for our country and the world”.

Tesla founder and technology luminary Elon Musk said Wednesday he would quit President Donald Trump’s business advisory councils if Washington pulls out of the Paris climate accord.

Powerhouse companies including Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Intel took out a full-page ad in the New York Times, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal asking Trump not to leave the agreement.

Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, favours staying in, the official said, and she has sought to ensure her father heard all sides in the debate.

President Donald Trump will follow through on a campaign pledge to pull the United States out of a global pact to fight climate change, a source briefed on the decision told Reuters, a move that promises to deepen a rift with us allies.

The White House was initially slated to make a final decision on the climate accord earlier this month, but delayed the decision until the G7 meeting in Sicily.

“The Paris agreement was created to be flexible so that parties could respond to changing domestic circumstances”, Andrew Light, a distinguished senior fellow at the World Resources Institute told ABC News.

For all its symbolic importance, the decision may have little practical effect on US carbon emissions. The official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the decision before the official announcement, said the president and his aides were finalizing the details of a pullout. She said the agreement “honors our collective moral responsibility to leave future generations with a planet that is clean, healthy and sustainable”.

Speculation mounted Wednesday that President Donald Trump would pull the United States out of the Paris climate change deal.

The White House had previously indicated that Trump could simply recalibrate emissions targets.

Under the pact, the United States committed to reduce its emissions by 26 to 28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2025.

U.S. media reported on Wednesday that Trump had made a decision to pull the United States out of the Paris accord. The majority of Americans support the Paris accord, as per data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. “I can get back to you”.

Word of Trump’s possible decision comes a day after the president met with Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. And the corporate world has by and large come out in favour of the United States keeping its seat at the table.

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis responded in a television interview Sunday, assuring that Trump was “wide open on this issue as he takes in the pros and cons of that accord”.

But the efforts to persuade Trump were “very unsatisfactory”, according to German chancellor Angela Merkel, who observed: “Here we have the situation that six members, or even seven if you want to add the European Union, stand against one”. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said it is “absolutely essential” that the Paris accord be implemented.

Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists advocacy group, said “I don’t think any other countries will follow the USA out of Paris, so if he does leave, Trump will be in splendid isolation with the leaders of Syria and Nicaragua”.