On Friday at the #Group of 7 summit in Taormina, Italy, World Leaders intensified their pressure on President Donald Trump to commit the United States to the landmark #Paris climate agreement. Various negotiators for the Western powers in attendance are working hard to see eye to eye with Trump, his aides and official colleagues in preparation for everyone's departure on Saturday.
Even with allies pleading with him during official and exclusive meetings at the world famous summit, Trump stood by his assertion that he'd do only what is best for the #United States, which included the possibility that the US would withdraw from the 2015 pact that Obama had sealed with his signature, along with 195 other nations, according to the New York Times.
Talking about the choice between either economic well being or remaining in the #Paris climate accord, Trump's team made it very clear that they would go with the United States of America's financial well being over the environmental wellbeing of the planet. “If those things collide, growing our economy is going to win,” asserted Trump's economics advisors Gary Cohn, who was in attendance at the summit in the small vacation town overlooking the Ionian sea.
Experts say that the exit of the United States, the world's greatest economy and the second-largest contributor to #greenhouse gas pollution, from the historic Paris agreement would, not could, profoundly devastate the ground-breaking effort to halt and terminate climate change.
Indeed, the United State's removal from the agreement could invite other countries to rescind their signatures and obligations to the agreement, and it could sabotage the global effort to cut #greenhouse gases and other pollution that heats the planet.
A broad plea to the United States
Whilst the leaders of the countries attending staged an elaborate campaign to persuade Trump to keep America in the #climate accord, negotiators for the seven nations positioned for the two days at the Hotel San Domenico tried to find mutual consensus on a collective statement that might persuade Trump in the coming days.
As reported in the Times, those US officials at the summit were driving for an arrangement that if America remained in the #Paris accord it would be able to decrease the #emission-reduction targets that President Barack Obama had agreed to. Trump's official aides and high level ministers claimed that those targets made by Obama would negatively impact the American economy.
Also, with Trump's commitment to keep coal a growing and flourishing industry in the United States – it was one of his election promises – aides to the President were pressing for a clause in the statement that would comfort #US coal workers and producers that the Paris accord would not compromise the struggling industry. Trump, according to the Times, wants language in the statement that specifically welcomes the production and use of what he calls #clean coal.
Across the world, however, #environmentalists are anxious that such tailor made provisions would profoundly destabilize the efficiency and value of the multi-national determination to moderate global warming. That Trump is using the Unite State's preparedness to risk the health of the planet in return for better bargaining power is angering some other groups too.
Others people, meanwhile, think that keeping the US in the Paris accord is worth making compromises for.
On Friday it was indeterminate whether a joint statement, if one is finally agreed upon and given to the US, would see a level-headed and honest commitment from America about remaining in the Paris accord.
