Trump Signals US Is Likely To Exit Paris Climate Deal

June 1, 2017

Washington, Jun 1: President Donald Trump is still undecided but leaning toward withdrawing the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement, White House officials said Wednesday, a move that would honor a campaign vow but risk rupturing global alliances and disappointing both environmentalists and corporate titans.donald

Although officials warned that Trump's thinking could shift before he announces his decision Thursday, a U.S. exit from the climate pact could have severe ramifications internationally. It could raise doubts about the commitment of the world's largest economy to curbing global warming and make it more difficult to hold other nations to their environmental commitments.

All but two countries - Nicaragua and Syria - signed onto the 2015 accord, which was a signature diplomatic achievement for President Barack Obama.

The Paris agreement has long divided the Trump administration, with the president taking much of the spring to make up his mind amid an intense campaign by both sides to influence his decision.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and adviser, are among those who have urged him to stay in the deal. White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt have pushed for a withdrawal, which wouldn't actually be finalized until near the end of Trump's term.

Although the White House signaled that Trump was likely to announce an exit from the Paris accord, it made no public announcement Wednesday. Trump tweeted that he would announce his decision Thursday at 3 p.m. in the White House Rose Garden. The president has a history of changing his mind at the last minute, as he did in deciding not to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement after aides had suggested he would.

All day, senior administration officials cautioned that Trump had not yet made a final decision on the climate pact - and the president himself seemed eager to maintain the suspense.

"You're going to find out very soon," Trump told reporters Wednesday, in response to questions during a brief Oval Office appearance with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

Asked whether he had been hearing from CEOs trying to persuade him, Trump said, "I'm hearing from a lot of people, both ways." More than 190 nations agreed to the accord in December 2015 in Paris, and 147 have since formally ratified or otherwise joined it, including the United States - representing more than 80 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

The United States is the world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Under the Paris agreement, the United States promised to reduce its emissions 26 percent to 28 percent below their 2005 levels by 2025. As of 2015, emissions were 12 percent lower, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Hard-line conservatives have sought to convince Trump that meeting this target would be harmful to the bottom lines of U.S. businesses and would jeopardize manufacturing jobs, especially in the Midwest and other regions where Trump found deep support in last year's election.

They also have argued that staying in the Paris agreement could be used as a legal tool by environmental groups seeking to fight Trump's environmental policies.

In addition, a group of 22 Republican senators - including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., - wrote to Trump urging "a clean break" from the Paris agreement.

But Tillerson and other internationalists have argued that it would be beneficial to the United States to remain part of negotiations and meetings surrounding the agreement as a matter of leverage and influence.

A broad range of outsiders have lobbied Trump to remain part of the global pact, from former vice president Al Gore to Pope Francis. The administration's debate has triggered an outpouring of lobbying from corporate America as well, as Apple, ExxonMobil and other major companies have strongly supported the accord.

During Trump's maiden foreign trip last week, a number of European leaders sought to persuade Trump of the magnitude of the climate change crisis and the importance of American leadership to address it.

Gary Cohn, the National Economic Council director, told reporters last week that Trump "wants to do the right thing for the environment. He cares about the environment. But he also cares very much about creating jobs for American workers." He added, "If those things collide, growing our economy is going to win. The president ran on growing our economy."

As a candidate, Trump railed against the Paris accord and pledged to scrap it, as part of his "America First" agenda to promote economic nationalism and disentangle the United States from international agreements that he considers harmful.

Trump also said he thought climate change was a "hoax." Asked by a reporter Wednesday whether he still believes so, the president said only, "Thank you, everybody."

News reports Wednesday that Trump was expected to withdraw from the Paris accord sparked swift and strong reactions.

Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and a member of a White House manufacturing jobs advisory board, tweeted that if Trump does exit, he would have "no choice" but to end his affiliations with the administration.

Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee and one of Trump's finalists for secretary of state, tweeted, "Affirmation of the #ParisAgreement is not only about the climate: It is also about America remaining the global leader."

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said leaving the Paris agreement would amount to an "abdication" of American values.

"This would be yet another example of President Trump's 'Putting America Last' agenda - last in innovation, last in science, and last in international leadership," Bennet said in a statement.

Others cheered the notion that Trump might soon kill the climate agreement that had been an Obama legacy item.

"President Trump's decision sends a strong message to the environmentalist movement: no longer will the United States be strong armed by their scare tactics intended to harm our economy and inhibit economic growth," David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth, a conservative political action group, said in a statement.

A party that has fully joined the accord, as the United States has, cannot formally withdraw for three years after the agreement was entered into force in 2016 - and that is capped by an extra year-long waiting period. Under those rules, Trump could not complete a U.S. exit from the agreement until Nov. 4, 2020 - the day after the next presidential election.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he tried to explain to Trump during their climate discussions last week that withdrawing from the pact was no simple task.

"Not everything in international agreements is 'fake news,' " Juncker said Wednesday. He added, "This notion, 'I am Trump, I am American, 'America First' and I'm going to get out of it' - that won't happen. We tried to explain that to Mr. Trump in Taormina in clear German sentences. It seems our attempt failed." Taormina is the Sicilian resort town where the Group of Seven leaders met last week.

Trump also could opt to withdraw from the more foundational U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which laid the groundwork for the Paris deal and was signed by President George H.W. Bush and ratified by the Senate in the early 1990s.

But that is a more radical move, which would further withdraw the United States from all international climate change negotiations.

The Trump administration already has rolled back key Obama administration initiatives through executive action, including the EPA's Clean Power Plan, which was a key part of the U.S. promise through the Paris agreement. These policies have made it highly unlikely that the United States could honor its Paris pledge to sharply cut carbon dioxide emissions.

That leaves Trump with two clear choices: withdraw from the Paris agreement or revise the U.S. emissions targets downward to a more achievable level while remaining in the pact.

A downward revision would certainly prompt criticism from the international community, but not nearly so much as an abandonment. The Paris agreement is, after all, the first global accord on climate change action that has managed to unify both developed and developing nations behind a single framework to cut emissions.

Moreover, the accord is flexible in the sense that it does not mandate that any nation achieve any particular level of emissions cuts. Rather, every nation under the agreement pledges to do the best it can, and to participate in a process in which nations will regularly increase their ambitions over time.

The ultimate goal of the Paris agreement is to hold the warming of the planet to "well below" two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming above the temperatures found in the preindustrial times of the late 1800s. The Earth is already about one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than it was at that time, scientists have determined, and current and near future emissions seem quite likely to take the planet past 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in the coming decades.

Recent research has highlighted that above 2 degrees, major threats could ensue for Earth systems ranging from coral reefs to the planet's vast ice sheets.

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Agencies
April 14,2020

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has reprimanded the Imran Khan government for denying food aid to Hindus and Christians in Pakistan amid the coronavirus pandemic and warned that it will trigger an additional crisis due to religious discrimination.

The USCIRF is an independent federal government entity set up by the US Congress to monitor and report on religious freedom in the world.

Pakistan continues to be in the tier one of the USCIRF list of the countries whose record on religious freedom remains abysmal.

In a statement issue on Monday, the USCIRF said it was troubled by the reports of food aid being denied to Hindus and Christians in Pakistan amid pandemic.

Citing one of the examples of religious discrimination, the USCIRF said that in Karachi, the Saylani Welfare International Trust, a non-government organization set up to help the homeless and seasonal workers, has been refusing food aid to Hindus and Christians and providing it only Muslims.

Describing such actions "reprehensible", the USCIRF commissioner Anurima Bhargava said: "As COVID-19 continues to spread, vulnerable communities within Pakistan are fighting hunger and to keep their families safe and healthy. Food aid must not be denied because of one's faith."
One of the USCIRF commissioners, Johnnie Moore warned that if the Khan government continued with such policies, Pakistan would add an additional crisis.

"In a recent address by Prime Minister Khan to the international community, he highlighted that the challenge facing governments in the developing world is to save people from dying of hunger while also trying to halt the spread of COVID-19. This is a monumental task laying before many countries.

"Prime Minister Khan's government has the opportunity to lead the way but they must not leave religious minorities behind. Otherwise, they may add on top of it all one more crisis, created by religious discrimination and inter-communal strife."

The organization which makes foreign policy recommendations to the US President, the Secretary of State, and Congress, urged the Pakistani government to ensure that food aid from distributing organizations is shared equally with Hindus, Christians, and other religions minorities.

Last year, in its annual report, the USCIRF had noted that Hindus and Christians in Pakistan "face continued threats to their security and are subjected to various forms of harassment and social exclusion".

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Agencies
February 7,2020

Washington DC, Feb 7: United States on Thursday asked all countries to speak out against mistreatment of Muslims living in China especially in Xinjiang region by Chinese authorities.

Alice G. Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, while talking to reporters appreciated the steps taken by Central Asian states to ensure that no ethnic Kazakh, Uighur, Kyrgyz is refouled to China and that the human rights of individuals who reach Central Asia are observed.

"As a matter of principle we urge all countries, not just Central Asian countries, to speak out against human rights abuses that are evident against Muslims in all of China but certainly in Xinjiang. And the countries of Central Asia, several of the countries of Central Asia have deep first-hand knowledge of those abuses given the direct impact it has on their own populations who have loved ones, family members, that are swept up in these detention centers," Wells said.

"We appreciate steps by Central Asian states to ensure that no ethnic Kazakh, Uighur, Kyrgyz is refouled to China, that the human rights of individuals who reach Central Asia are observed. And we also appreciate I think what countries like Kazakhstan can do to promote the free and safe travel of compatriots, ethnic compatriots across the border," she added.

China has been accused of oppressing the Uighurs by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities and sending the community to undergo some form of forceful re-education or indoctrination. However, Pakistan has stayed mum over this issue.

As many as 1 million people, or about 7 per cent of Xinjiang's Muslim population, have been incarcerated in a sprawling network of "political re-education" camps, according to US and UN studies.

In 2018, the New York-based Human Rights Watch released a report accusing Beijing of a "systematic campaign of human rights violations" against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.

Beijing says its camps in Xinjiang are "vocational training centres."

Last year, several documents leaked revealed details about Beijing's fears about religious extremism and its wholesale crackdown on Uighurs.

The US had called on the Chinese government to "immediately release all of those who are arbitrarily detained and to end its draconian policies that have terrorised its own citizens in Xinjiang."

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Agencies
March 14,2020

Nairobi, Mar 14: Kenya and Ethiopia on Friday announced their first confirmed cases of coronavirus, as East Africa, which has so far been unscathed by the global pandemic, scaled up emergency measures to contain its spread.

In Kenya, a 27-year-old Kenyan woman tested positive for the virus on Thursday in Nairobi, a week after returning from the United States via London.

She was in a stable condition and recovering, Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe told reporters.

"We wish to assure all Kenyans that the government will use all the resources available to fight coronavirus," he said, as the government rolled out a raft of new containment measures.

The government had traced all the contacts of the patient since she arrived back in Kenya on March 5, he said.

"At the moment, there is absolutely no need for panic and worry," he said.

Kenya, with a population of 50 million people, saw a spree of panic buying among the middle-class in Nairobi supermarkets, in the wake of the announcement.

Meanwhile Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous nation with over 100 million people, said a 48-year-old Japanese man who had arrived in the country on March 4 from Burkina Faso was confirmed to have contracted the virus.

"He is undergoing medical follow-up and is in a stable condition. Those who have been in contact with this person are being traced and quarantined," the health ministry said in a statement.

Burkina Faso only confirmed its first case on Tuesday -- a couple returning from France -- and the Japanese patient had been in that country since February 24.

Ethiopian Health Minister Lia Tadesse said three other patients were in isolation.

Ethiopia becomes the 15 country in Africa with a confirmed case of the virus that has swept the globe, infecting more than 130,000 people and killing nearly 5,000 since it first emerged in China.

But to date the continent has been spared the worst of the pandemic.

Only five people have succumbed to coronavirus so far -- all in north Africa -- with the sub-Saharan region recording no deaths and very low numbers of confirmed cases.

But countries in East Africa -- which until the positive case in Kenya, had only recorded negative test results -- have been taking precautions.

Some flights have been restricted, with Kenya Airways suspending its route to Rome, and charter flights from Italy to the Kenyan coast on hold.

It has also suspended international conferences, a top earner in Nairobi, a hub for such events in the region, and non-essential travel abroad for politicians.

The government announced more expansive restrictions on Friday, including a temporary ban on major public gatherings, prison visits and activities between schools.

Other countries in the region have been rolling out their own measures.

In Rwanda, which shares a border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has confirmed cases, washing basins with soap and sanitiser have been placed on streets for commuters to use before boarding buses.

Authorities in Kigali, the capital, have also banned concerts, rallies and trade fairs -- although like in Kenya and Uganda, church services have been proceeding and bars, restaurants and entertainment precincts remain open.

Neighbouring Burundi, meanwhile, has quarantined 34 people in a hotel in Bujumbura as a precaution.

Uganda has ordered that visitors from a number of affected countries self quarantine for 14 days, or consider simply not visiting at all.

South Sudan's health ministry said meanwhile that it was "temporarily suspending direct flights between South Sudan and all affected countries".

Kagwe, the Kenyan health minister, also addressed a rumour circulating on social media that people with black skin cannot contract the virus.

"I would like to disabuse that notion. The lady (confirmed with coronavirus in Kenya) is an African, like you and I," he said.

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