American Legion Auxiliary Green Mountain Girls State

Trump Leaving the Paris Agreement

Gabrielle From the Town of Jones

Last year, the United States entered the Paris Agreement. This agreement’s main goal was to prevent the temperature to reach the two degree celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. If possible, they want to keep the temperature raise under one and a half degrees celsius. All the countries are supposed to lower their greenhouse gas emissions. The countries are supposed to report their progress. The United States backed out of the Paris Agreement on June 1 2017. This could be one of the worst things that our country dropped out of.  Germany, Italy, and France issued a joint statement about the United States leaving the agreement,  they said that even though Trump wanted a better “deal”, the Paris Agreement was  “‘irreversible’ and could not be renegotiated” (nytimes.com). Later, Vermont entered the Paris Agreement as a State. This speaks volumes, because our little state is in a very important climate agreement, that our country backed out of.

What does the US leaving mean for the Paris Agreement? While Trump talked about withdrawing from the agreement, about forty other countries signed the agreement. But, the US is technically not allowed to leave until the year of 2020.  This could cause problems, but I doubt that other countries will listen and agree with a country that doesn’t want to be at the Paris Convention, negotiating the rules.