President Trump is preparing to exit from the Paris climate change agreement as soon as this week, according to the former head of his environmental policy transition team.
“The U.S. will clearly change its course on climate policy,” Myron Ebell told reporters in London Monday. “Trump has made it clear he will withdraw from the Paris Agreement,” saying an executive order could come as soon as “tomorrow or he could do it as part of a larger package,” Ebell said.
Ebell led the Environmental Protection Agency’s transition team for Trump. He has returned to his job at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, where he is director of the Center for Energy and Environment.
Ebell said it was not entirely clear how Trump will proceed or the timing of the decision because federal agencies are still in the midst of transition, according to Reuters.
A country wishing to pull out of the agreement must wait four years, but the Trump team is looking for speedier ways to end the U.S. involvement as a signatory to the climate deal, Reuters said.
Ebell said the “cleanest” and easiest way would be to withdraw from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is the basis of the Paris agreement.
The United Nations formally adopted the Paris climate change agreement in the fall after countries agreed to the deal in 2015. The agreement seeks to cut greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades to stop the Earth from warming by two degrees Celsius. The agreement is non-binding but it does obligate the U.S. to make annual payments to a Green Climate Fund to help smaller developing nations cope with sea-level rise and other issues stemming from climate change. Many climate scientists blame greenhouse gases emitted from burning fossil fuels for driving manmade climate change.
