Donald Trump officially announced last week his decision to abandon the 2015 Paris Accord, reached when the United States and 195 other nations agreed to cut greenhouse-emissions (GHGs) in an effort to curb climate change. The U.S. had committed to reducing GHGs by 26-28 percent from 2005 levels, by 2025.

 

The largest identified contributor of GHGs comes from the burning of fossil fuels that release warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Trump called his decision “reassertion of our sovereignty” and said, “This agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the U.S.”

The 196 countries had pledged to limit warming temperatures “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), relative to pre-Industrial Revolution levels. Climate scientists claim this level to be the danger threshold and after this, say a higher temperature to the planet could cause irreversible damage.

But pulling out of the accord will take at least four years; the 31-page agreement that took decades to negotiate would have an exit date of Nov. 3, 2020 – the day of the next presidential election, and four years after the agreement became effective on Nov. 4, 2016.

As it took years to reach the agreement among the signatory nations, it’s a huge bureaucratic undertaking to unravel terms such as a $3 billion annual U.S. commitment to help fund poorer countries meeting their own environmental obligations.

Speaking to a audience of administration staffers, lawmakers and Congressional workers in the White House Rose Garden June 1, Trump said, “In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Accord, but will begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris Accord or an entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States.

“We are getting out. We will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great.”

There are no terms in the accord, however, that allow parties to renegotiate its previously agreed terms. Within minutes of Trump’s announcement, the leaders of Germany, France and Italy issued a joint statement saying the accord was “irreversible” and could not be renegotiated.

National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson was quick to respond, calling the action “shameful.” He said the Trump administration “fails to recognize the very real and immediate threats of climate change to family farmers, ranchers and our nation’s food security. We cannot sustain a viable food system if climate change is left unchecked.”

The effects of global warming have been felt increasingly across the nation’s farm fields through dramatic changing weather patterns of dangerous heat waves, extreme storm events and severe droughts.

NASA’s Earth Science Division estimates U.S. corn production alone could suffer production losses of hundreds of millions of dollar a year over the next 30 years as a result of global warming and increasing shifting weather episodes.

Iowa State University climate professor Dr. Eugene Takle is worried about the extreme weather shifts and said he “sees no let-ups,” adding, “We’re getting excessive rains in the spring, more frequent rains and more heavy rains” across corn-producing states such as Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa.

 

“Moderate rain is good for increasing corn production, but heavy rains can be  etrimental,” he’s quoted as saying in various media accounts.

The non-binding Paris Accord was an Executive Order signed by former President Barack Obama, who bypassed a Republican-controlled Senate that indicated it would not support ratification.

 

Trump had campaigned on a promise to undo the accord, calling it a job-killerthat targeted the coal and oil industry, and while on the campaign trail last year called climate change “a hoax.”

Across the agricultural sector, some farm groups and associations thus far supportive of Trump have so far avoided commenting on the announcement. Not surprising was a strong defense of Trump’s move in a two-paragraph statement from USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue, who praised his action. He said farmers “have persevered in the past,  and they will adapt in the future – withthe assistance of the scientists and experts at USDA.”

That statement comes on the heels of a White House 2018 budget proposal that slashes hundreds of millions of dollars in staff and science research programs that were previously established to help farmers fight global warming.

Perdue said USDA’s research now “needs to be focused on finding solutions and providing state-of-the-art technologies to improve management decisions on farm and on forest lands.”

Trump’s decision shuns some of the strongest pleas to stay with the accord from his closest advisors, including his daughter and son-in-law Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

Dow Chemical Chief Executive Andrew Liveris, one of Trump’s closest business  allies, waited all week for a meeting with the President to voice his strong objection against killing the deal, but never had the chance for a one-on-one meeting.

Trump did receive support to push against the accord from Senior Advisor Steve Brannon and U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who both led the internal campaign to convince Trump to pull out, with Pruitt later praising the president for his “unflinching commitment to put America first” and calling the move a “historic restoration of American economic independence.”

A day after the announcement, several American cities, states and more than 100 leading U.S. companies said they are preparing to submit their own plan to the United Nations pledging to meet the GHG emission standards established under the Paris accord.

 

On June 2 Pruitt appeared before reporters in the White House press briefing room and slammed Trump’s critics, saying “climate exaggerators” had overblown the potential impact of pulling out of the agreement.

“People have called me a climate skeptic or a climate denier. I don’t know what it means to deny the climate,” Pruitt said. “I would say they’re climate exaggerators.” He declined to respond to questions of whether the President believes in climate change or still believes global warming is a hoax.

Ray Gaesser, an Iowa farmer and president of the American Soybean Assoc. who in the past has spoken out in support of the accord, did not respond to Farm World seeking comment. In a previous statement, he once said, “We live and die by the weather.” 

 

The Renewable Fuels Assoc., which represents an industry that relies on billions of bushels of corn annually to produce ethanol, reemphasized its previous statement in an email to Farm World: “Whether the U.S. is a participant in the  Paris Accord or not, the U.S. can continue to lead the world on clean energy development and carbon reduction, given the right policy environment,” said Bob Dinneen, president.

“Biofuels like ethanol makes sense both environmentally and economically; our industry will continue to innovate, grow and fight climate change regardless of whether the U.S. is party to the Paris agreement.”

Pulling out of the accord is not an easy process, and Trump could have gone  further by taking the U.S. out of the underlying U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, a global agreement that predates the Paris Accord. If Trump had dumped that as well, he would have abandoned all international cooperative efforts to curb global warming.

By pulling out of the Paris accord, the U.S. joins Nicaragua and Syria as the only other countries not part of the treaty.