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US president Donald Trump has said he will withdraw the US from the historic Paris climate agreement, dealing a blow to worldwide efforts to slow global warming following the hottest year on record.
The move was announced on Monday after Trump took the oath of office, replacing Joe Biden as US president.
“President Trump will withdraw from the Paris climate accord,” the White House said in an email listing the new administration’s priorities less than half an hour after the new president took office.
America’s exit from the 2015 deal, which was signed by almost 200 countries, means the world’s largest historical polluter will once again walk away from its commitment to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Rachel Cleetus, policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the US withdrawal was “a travesty” and “in clear defiance of scientific realities”.
In his inauguration speech, Trump said he would seek to make maximum use of the US’s oil and gas reserves.
The US is the only country to have left the Paris agreement, under the first Trump administration in 2017. But it rejoined under Biden in 2021. Former president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro also threatened to withdraw from the accord, but did not follow through.
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