Paris deal: US turns heat on India

In a speech from White House’s Rose Garden on Thursday, Trump said the landmark 2015 pact imposed wildly unfair environmental standards on American businesses and workers. H said the deal gives advantages to countries like India and China. “India makes its participation on receiving billions and billions of dollars from developed countries. Paris accord is very unfair at the highest level to the United States. The current India will be allowed to double its coal production and so does China,” Trump alleged. 

“This agreement is more about climate and more about others getting advantages. This put the USA to a very very big economic disadvantage,” he said, adding that as a result of the deal, the US would not be able to compete with other countries in the world. 

“Compliance to the deal could cost 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025... Believe me, this is not what we need,” Trump said. The US now joins Nicaragua and Syria as the only non-participants to the accord, signed by 195 nations including Washington in Paris in December 2015 to combat climate change. 

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres asserted that climate change is “undeniable” as he strongly urged all governments to “stay the course” and remain committed to implementing the ambitious deal. Interestingly, three Democratic Governors of California, New York and Washington said they won’t let the US back away from a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, despite Trump’s decision to withdraw from an international pact.