Center for Biological Diversity

For Immediate Release, June 1, 2017

Contact: Patrick Sullivan, (415) 517-9364, psullivan@biologicaldiversity.org

Trump Pulls Out of Paris Climate Agreement

WASHINGTON— Just days after Germany and other major developed nations reaffirmed their commitment to global climate action, the Trump administration today is announcing that the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

“Trump just confirmed his total contempt for our planet's future,” said KierĂ¡n Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “With this reckless rejection of international climate cooperation, the administration took a giant step toward turning our country into a rogue nation. Most Americans want global action against global warming, but Trump's foreign policy seems aimed strictly at appeasing coal companies and the oil industry.”

A recent survey found that 71 percent of Americans support the Paris agreement, which acknowledges the urgent need to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to avoid catastrophic climate change.

The U.S. withdrawal comes not long after more than 200,000 people marched on Washington in the Peoples Climate March to resist Trump's anti-climate policies. In Trump's first 100 days in office, his administration has already approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, lifted a coal moratorium on public lands and moved toward opening vast areas of America's coasts to offshore drilling.

“With our world speeding toward a climate catastrophe, Trump just stepped on the gas,” Suckling said. “But the rest of America will keep fighting global warming and this reckless president. We'll battle his dangerous agenda in the courts, in the streets and at the state and local level across the country. We won't let corporate power and this corrupt administration condemn our planet to disaster.”

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.3 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

www.biologicaldiversity.org

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