Trump pulls out of global climate treaty

President Donald Trump withdrew the United States on Wednesday from the bedrock international agreement that forms the basis for countries to rein in climate change.

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The agreement, which has been in place for 34 years, counts all of the other nations of the world as members.

In a social media post, the White House announced that the president signed a presidential memorandum that pulled the United States from 66 international organizations and treaties that “no longer serve American interests.”

The decision not only sends a powerful signal of America’s withdrawal from global diplomacy and leadership, but is a finger in the eye to the billions of people, including Americans, suffering intensifying wildfires, storms and droughts, threats to the food supply and to biodiversity, and other dangerous and costly effects of a warming planet.

The move sealed the United States’ isolation in the world on climate action. The agreement, officially known as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, was established in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Known by its acronym, UNFCCC, it was the foundation for the Paris agreement a decade ago, a voluntary pact among nations to slow down global temperature increases to relatively reasonable levels.

Trump has already moved to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement. That will become official Jan. 20.