The EU and China today pledged to continue to tackle climate change, emphasising consistency and multilateralism, in response to US President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw his country from the Paris climate agreement.
"The Paris Agreement continues to be the best hope of all humanity", European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said today at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. "So Europe will stay the course, and keep working with all nations that want to protect nature and stop global warming."
The US withdrawal is "unfortunate", EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra wrote today on social media site X, but the EU is "committed to working with the US and our international partners to address the pressing issue of climate change".
China "will observe the goals and principles of [UN climate body] the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement and make greater contributions to the global climate response", the country's vice premier Ding Xuexiang said today. Multilateralism is the "golden key" to solving global issues, Ding said.
Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the US from the Paris accord on 20 January, the first day of his second term as president. He pulled the US out of the agreement during his first term, and had long threatened to do the same if re-elected.
The US rejoined the agreement in early 2021, shortly after former president Joe Biden took office. The process of exiting will take a year, as set out in the agreement itself.
The Paris agreement, negotiated in 2015 and signed by 195 parties, seeks to limit the rise in global temperatures to "well below" 2°C above pre-industrial levels and preferably to 1.5°C.
The group of least developed countries — a negotiating bloc at UN climate talks — said the Paris accord remains "a vital climate pact". The US exit "threatens to reverse hard-won gains in reducing emissions and puts our vulnerable countries at greater risk", the group's chair Evans Njewa wrote on X today.
The US is likely to cancel financial commitments under the UNFCCC as part of its Paris agreement withdrawal.
"We've been here before… and the door remains open", UNFCCC executive secretary Simon Stiell said today at the WEF in Davos. But "the world is undergoing an energy transition that is unstoppable", he added.
That global shift to renewable energy "speaks to more jobs, better jobs, higher wages, stronger economies, energy security… anyone who steps back from this significant forward momentum creates a vacuum that others will fill and will benefit from", Stiell said.
Although national policy has steered the energy transition forward, some elements are increasingly market-driven.
"Sustainability is going to continue to be a major focus of the US economy, because it's being driven by the private sector", governor of the state of Kentucky Andy Beshear said at the WEF today. His fellow Democrat, California governor Gavin Newsom pointed to recent catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles.
"If you don't believe in science, believe your own damn eyes", Newsom said today.
Extreme weather events such as wildfires and hurricanes — to which large swathes of the US are vulnerable — are proven to be exacerbated by climate change.