Early this June, President Trump announced that the United States would be pulling out of the landmark Paris climate accord. Trump’s shocking decision to abandon the agreement for environmental action resulted in many to fear that other nations would follow suit due to the United States’ influential status in world politics.
However, in a remarkable admittance of disagreement and exception to cooperation, leaders at the G20 summit in Hamburg deferred from the United States’ stance on climate policy and global warming. Although there was dissent on the issues of the environment and the climate, the entirety of the opposition resulted from the United States, as the other 19 countries maintained their commitment to the Paris climate agreement and it aims to tackle global warming and the issues associated with it.
Despite the US pulling out of the accord, the remaining nations reaffirmed their commitment to implementing the Paris agreement, combatting climate change and advancing clean energy development. In Trump’s absence, the other 19 nations that were present at the summit, which some are calling the “G19”, released the Hamburg Climate and Energy Action Plan for Growth, which addresses sustainable practices and strategies to thwart global warming.
While the other G20 countries worked on drafting this robust climate action plan, the United States stood alone in its dedication to fossil fuels. Rather than affirming the Paris accords, the United States declared that it, “will endeavor to work closely with other countries to help them access and use fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently and help deploy renewable and other clean energy sources.”
Furthermore, German Chancellor Angela Merkel closed the G20 summit with a reproach towards President Trump’s abandoning of the Paris climate change agreement. As Merkel closed the G20 summit, she said: “Unfortunately — and I deplore this — the United States of America left the climate agreement, or rather announced their intention of doing this.” Merkel also noted that the other 19 members of the G20 regarded the United States stance on the climate accord as irreversible and reaffirmed their commitment to the agreement.
While Merkel remains steadfast in her stance on the permanence of President Trump’s decision to abandon the Paris climate accord other leaders have not given up in their hopes that the United States would rejoin the agreement. French President Emmanuel Macron expressed that he has not ceased his attempts to convince Trump to reverse his flagrant decision. Additionally, Theresa May, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, asserted similar sentiments to Macron as she stated, “Like other world leaders here, I am dismayed at the US decision to pull out of the Paris agreement and I urged President Trump to rejoin the Paris agreement.”
