The announcement will be made at 3:00 pm today (June 1, 2017).    It has been widely rumored that Trump will pull out of the Accords.  The Agreement was a very major step forward in acceptance of a global problem.

CNN outlined three options that Trump has: (1) The Normal Exit- by withdrawing from the Accords by 2020 (2) The Radical  Exit- by withdrawing from the UN organization (UNFCCC) under which the Accords were agreed upon and (3) The non-exit, which Trump simply ignores the provisions of the Accords.

The radical exit is the one supported by conservative groups,  such as the Heritage group.  The coal companies such as Peabody and Cloud Peak Coal, want Trump not to exit the Accords, as this puts the EU in a leadership role in setting targets.

Options

A final option (“death in the legislature” option)  is for Trump to  state the Accord is really a treaty, which must be ratified by 2/3 of the Senate.  With the Republican controlled Senate, the treaty would be “dead on arrival.”   This would change the issue to one of Obama overstepping his authority, and Trump might just go for it.

The Paris Agreement is more of an “agreement in principal”  rather than a treaty, as it lacks any penalties for countries who do not reduce their carbon emissions. It is an important first step as it is an  agreement of mutual commitment  to a global problem.   As it is structured,  the US could stay in the Accords,  do nothing to reduce these emissions and not be sanctioned by the UN.

Obama signed the agreement as an Executive Order.  Trump can legally exit the agreement, but has to comply with the set schedule if he wants to do the normal exit.

I predict that many countries will be looking more at the “non-exit” or “non-compliance” option, which means climate change is something leaders of the countries are concerned about, but  nobody does much about it.

This will leave the US as the only one of 193 countries to exit the Accord.

Stay tuned,

Dave