International, political, and corporate leaders hit back at Donald Trump’s announcement of US withdrawal from Paris Accord on climate change.


Developments on Day 133 of the Trump Administration:

Trump Announces Intention to Withdraw from Paris Accord

Donald Trump says the US will withdraw from the Paris Accord on climate change, signed by almost 200 nations.

Speaking from the Rose Garden of the White House, Trump said the “draconian” Accord, signed in April 2016 and implemented from November, imposed unfair environmental standards on American businesses and workers: “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”

Trump signalled earlier this week that he would make the announcement, ending weeks of debate amongst his advisors. Senior economic advisor Gary Cohn, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, and her husband and White House senior advisor Jared Kushner all opposed departure.

However, the ambition of chief strategist Steve Bannon and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, to leave was bolstered by a letter of support from 22 Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The White House has also been in need of a headline to take attention away from the expanding investigation into Trump-Russia links.

Trump was accompanied by Pruitt in the Rose Garden, with no sign of those who challenged the withdrawal.

Despite Thursday’s announcement, it is unclear if Trump can take the US out of the agreement until the end of his term. Under the terms of the Accord, the process will take until November 4, 2020, the day after the next US Presidential election. To speed up that timetable, the US would have to take the more drastic step of leaving the UN convention on climate change.

Trump joins only two countries — Nicaragua, which said the agreement is not tough enough, and Syria — who have opposed the Accord.

International, Corporate, Local Rejection of Trump’s Move

Trump said he wanted to negotiate a better deal for the US, with the White House saying he had called the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, and Canada to explain that “America remains committed to the trans-Atlantic alliance and to robust efforts to protect the environment”.

But the supposed reassurance was at odds with the language of Trump’s announcement: “At what point does America get demeaned? At what point do they start laughing at us as a country?. We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore. And they won’t be.”

And within minutes of the Rose Garden statement, the French, German, and Italian leader issued a joint statement saying that the Paris climate accord was “irreversible” and could not be renegotiated.

French President Emmanuel Macron was forthright, “There is no Plan B. There is no Planet B.”

Miguel Arias Cañete, the European Union’s commissioner for climate, proclaimed on Twitter that “today’s announcement has galvanized us rather than weakened us, and this vacuum will be filled by new broad committed leadership.”

US financial and business leaders criticized the withdrawal. Elon Musk of Tesla, Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric, and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs said the decision would ultimately harm the economy, with jobs in clean energy and technology going to overseas competitors.

Musk said he will leave business panels set up by Trump earlier this year. So did the Disney Company’s Robert Iger:

IBM hit back at Trump’s claims of economic benefit from departure: “This agreement requires all participating countries to put forward their best efforts on climate change as determined by each country. IBM believes that it is easier to lead outcomes by being at the table, as a participant in the agreement, rather than from outside it.”

Other companies objecting to the withdrawal include Amazon, Apple, Google, HP, and Microsoft.

The governors of New York, California, and Washington announced the formation of the “United States Climate Alliance”. Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York said in their statement that he would continue to implement the Accord’s guidelines:

The White House’s reckless decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement has devastating repercussions not only for the United States, but for our planet. This administration is abdicating its leadership and taking a backseat to other countries in the global fight against climate change.

The three states have a population of 68 million people and contribute about 10% of the US’s greenhouse gas emissions.

And the mayor of Pittsburgh pushed back against Trump’s invocation of his city in the Rose Garden statement:

MIT Scientists Criticize Trump for Misusing Their Research

Officials and scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say Trump badly misunderstood their research when he cited it in the announcement.

Trump asserted:

Even if the Paris Agreement were implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it would only produce a two-tenths of one degree Celsius reduction in global temperature by the year 2100.

Tiny, tiny amount.

An April 2016 study from MIT estimated that if countries abided by their pledges in the deal, global warming would slow by between 0.6 degree and 1.1 degrees Celsius by 2100.

But Erwan Monier — a lead researcher at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and one of the study’s authors — rejected Trump’s interpretation: “We certainly do not support the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris agreement.”

John Reilly, the co-director of the program, added, “If we don’t do anything, we might shoot over 5 degrees or more and that would be catastrophic.”

O’Reilly said MIT’s scientists had had no contact with the White House and were not offered a chance to explain their work.

A “senior administration official” maintained Trump’s line: “It’s not just MIT. I think there is a consensus, not only in the environmental community, but elsewhere that the Paris agreement in and of itself will have a negligible impact on climate.”

Trump Turns Philippines Casino Shooting Into “Terrorist Attack”

Trump opened his statement, £I would like to begin by addressing the terrorist attack in Manila. It is really very sad as to what’s going on throughout the world with terror. Our thoughts and our prayers are with all of those affected.”

But the Manila episode was not terrorism, according to local officials. A police chief said authorities thought a lone gunman was trying to rob a gaming resort and had set some tables on fire.

“We cannot say this is an act of terror…he did not hurt anyone,” the chief said. “If you are a terrorist, you will sow terror.”


Trump’s Ethics Waivers to 16 White House Officials

Donald Trump grants waivers to at least 16 White House officials to allow them to work on issues they handled in their private-sector jobs.

The number of waivers in Trump’s first four months equal those of Barack Obama during his eight years in office.

The White House posted the waivers late Wednesday after resistance to the Office of Government Ethics, which requested information about the waivers to determine if the Trump Administration was following federal ethics rules. Those rules include Trump’s executive order in January requiring former lobbyists to recuse themselves from matters on which they had lobbied for two years after their appointment.

Trump has so far granted waivers to four former registered lobbyists, including Michael Catanzaro, the Special Assistant to the President for domestic energy and environmental policy. Catanzaro has represented oil and gas companies such as Devon Energy, Koch Industries, Halliburton, and Hess for years. He also lobbied the Environmental Protection Agency over its greenhouse gas regulations and regulatory reform, representing industry trade groups such as the American Chemistry Council and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers.

With the waiver, Catanzaro can work on those issues, including the Clean Power Plan and methane regulations.

Andrew Olmem, a Special Assistant to the President for financial policy, is a former registered lobbyist who represented MetLife , American Express, and other financial companies. Shahira Knight, a former lobbyist for Fidelity Investments on tax and retirement policy issues, can participate in policy discussions on those subjects.

Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway were granted waivers related to their past work for the Republican National Committee and other political organizations, while chief strategist Steve Bannon can continue Breitbart, his former employer.

The White House earlier this month sought to block the Office of Government Ethics’s effort to obtain the waivers. Walter Shaub, the OGE director, declined the request and produced hundreds of pages of material to back up his position.


Trump-Russia: Putin Says Hacking May Have Been by “Patriotic” Russians

Russian President Vladimir Putin says “patriotic” Russian hackers might have been involved in attacks such as those during the 2016 US Presidential election, while insisting that the Kremlin has no involvement.

Putin told senior editors of international news agencies, in response to a question about concerns in Germany over Russian interference in upcoming federal elections:

Hackers are free people. They are like artists. If they are in a good mood, they get up in the morning and begin painting their pictures.

Hackers are the same. They wake up in the morning, they read about some developments in international affairs, and if they have a patriotic mindset, then they try to make their own contribution the way they consider right into the fight against those who have bad things to say about Russia.

We are not engaged in this on the state level and we are not going to. On the contrary, we are trying to fight against it inside the country.

Putin maintained, “No hackers can fundamentally influence outcome of an election in another country.”


Tillerson Snubbed EU’s Foreign Policy Chief

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson contributed to tension between the US and Europe, 1 1/2 months before Donald Trump’s unsettling trip to the continent last week, when his office declined a call with the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, after his visit to Russia.

“Multiple sources close to the incident” said Mogherini requested a briefing after Tillerson’s trip on April 11-12, with a session with Russian President Vladimir Putin, before she saw Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on April 24. The Secretary of State’s office sent the request to the State Department’s director of policy planning, Brian Hook.

“It really pissed her off,” one source said.

A source close to the EU chief said, “This is like a total screw-up. This is not the way you treat Mogherini.”

Mogherini declined the offer of a briefing from Hook.

Tillerson’s aide R.C. Hammond said the “the most efficient accommodation under the circumstances was available to” the EU official at the time. A State Department representative pointed to the regular contact Tillerson and Mogherini have had recently, including their participation in the US-EU leaders meeting during Trump’s visit to Brussels on May 25.