Source: Trump Will Withdraw U.S. From Paris Climate Agreement – The New York Times

When I drafted my Marie Skłodowska-Curie proposal, i.e. some months before the COP21 in Paris in 2015, I decided to include the study of scenarios which would consider different levels of participation of world regions in climate policies led by the European Union. The intuition was on the one hand that the EU would certainly continue playing a leadership role in climate action, and on the other hand that some regions could refuse to take part in the agreement, or sign it but withdraw later on. Concerning the latter, I had imagined that this could be the case for some developing countries, or maybe the main fossil fuel producers, for instance. I would never have thought that this scenario would become relevant for the United States, though. But apparently, here we are.

Of course now we will have to see what practical steps will follow this annoucement, because ultimately only facts matter. However, it is true that today’s speech by Mr. Trump is really meaningful, and surely worrying for our planet.

Commenting on the America First Energy Plan in the previous months, I had written that “It will be imperative for the European Union and China to lead climate action and the deployment of renewable energies, in order to let the world achieve ambitious climate targets”: obviously, I can’t but reaffirm this concept once again.