European nations unite to continue actions to stop global warming.
On the first Monday of his presidency, Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. This was part of a flurry of moves after taking office. To world leaders gathered in Davos, Switzerland, it represented a shot across the bow.
Many political and business figures attended this annual World Economic Forum and joined together to combat climate change, and support the Paris Agreement, which almost all nations agreed to in 2015.
Pulling the United States out of the pact is a signal of both the administration’s lack of concern about rising planet-warming emissions, and also a rebuke of the kind of multilateralism that has come to define Davos.
The World Economic Forum’s annual gathering has long focused on climate and the environment. A survey by the organization ranked extreme weather as a top global threat.
For years, policymakers and companies in Davos have promoted their efforts to reduce emissions, embrace clean energy and work collaboratively to blunt global warming.
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, said on Tuesday that President Trump’s actions would not lead Europe to change its plans. “Europe will stay the course and keep working with all nations that want to protect nature and stop global warming.”
“The Paris Agreement continues to be the best hope for all humanity.”
Simon Stiell, the United Nations climate chief, said the shift to clean power would happen with or without the United States. “The world is undergoing an energy transition that is unstoppable,” he said, adding that the U.S. could rejoin the Paris pact at any time.
Corporate leaders were more circumspect in their remarks about Mr. Trump. “While it is deeply disappointing that the new U.S. presidential administration has decided to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, one country’s decision does not change the global course of action,” the group said in a statement.
“I think we all knew Paris Accord was coming,” said Kate Brandt, Google’s chief sustainability officer. “A lot of the early conversations we’ve been having with the new administration is around things like advanced nuclear, advanced geothermal, battery storage technology, the use cases of A.I.”
Environmental activists were more forthright in their condemnation of Mr. Trump’s move to pull out of the Paris Agreement. “No one country, let alone one man, can stop the global energy transition,” said Tzeporah Berman, a Canadian climate activist who is chairwoman of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative.
“Trump is desperately trying to hold onto the past even though the reality of our heavy dependence on fossil fuels is etched into the scorched landscape of Los Angeles. What he did in January when the city burned down will cost lives and hold Americans and the world back from protecting what we love.”
During the last Trump administration when he didn’t send a delegation to the Climate Change conference, several public officials from the blue states attended the conference in including the then Speaker Of the House, Nancy Pelosi. They told the conference that in their states they were delivering on the goals of the U.S in meeting climate change goals. And they were also the leaders in the most successful state economies.
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Information in this story is from climate change articles in the New York Times, January 2025.