BOSTON — Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Director Scott Pruitt is to file his proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan today. While this announcement is catastrophic for U.S. climate policy, it also has implications for next month’s round of the negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Earlier this year, President Trump announced that he was cutting all funding for the UNFCCC and would begin the process to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement. Despite committing to send a delegation to next month’s talks, this latest announcement confirms the Trump administration is walking away from its obligations to the Paris Agreement, the UNFCCC and climate policy globally.
Please see Corporate Accountability International President Kelle Louaillier’s statement below:
“The Trump Administration’s announcement today on the Clean Power Plan is a massive setback for U.S. climate policy. It also confirms what many have been warning of since November 8: The Trump administration will send its climate change delegation to COP23 with nothing but the fossil fuel industry’s agenda and will continue to slow, water down and block climate progress at every level.
With this announcement, the U.S. delegation will now arrive in Germany having ripped up its cornerstone climate policy and reneged on its international climate finance commitments, in service of an administration that doubts the science of climate change.
Enough is enough.
It’s time governments at the UNFCCC see the Trump administration as the bad faith negotiators they are and stand up to their bullying and obstructionism. With the fossil fuel industry so blatantly pulling all the strings, governments must protect climate policymaking in every way possible. They can start by kicking the very industries that have Trump, Pruitt and Tillerson deep in their pockets out of the talks for good.”
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