John Kerry: Absence of the American delegation at a major climate change summit in Paris is a “disgrace”
About 60 world leaders, hundreds of ministers and environmentalists gathered for the One Planet Summit called by French President Emmanuel Macron after Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the global climate accord.
About 60 world leaders, hundreds of ministers and environmentalists gathered for the One Planet Summit called by French President Emmanuel Macron after Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the global climate accord.
Since Trump’s administration started in the US. The country is likely to face a new chain of international isolation due to the president’s ignorance of International affairs and global diplomacy. Trump’s recent controversial decision recognizing al-Quds as Israel’s capital, is taking the country into an even deeper international isolation, a country that used to have delegations and envoys to almost all of the world’s international summits from ASEAN to G20 and environmental summits such as Global Warming, is now absent at a major climate change summit in Paris at One Planet Summit.
Trump was not invited and the US federal government was represented by the second-highest diplomat in the American embassy in Paris, Brent Hardt, two years to the day since Kerry and then-president Barack Obama helped lead pain-staking diplomatic efforts to clinch the Paris accord.
“It’s very disappointing, it’s worse than disappointing, it’s actually a disgrace when you consider the facts, the science, the common sense, all the work that’s been done,” Kerry told AFP on the summit sidelines.
The Paris Agreement took “26 years of work that’s being dishonored by people who don’t even understand the science,” he added.
American summit participants included the campaigning governor of California, Jerry Brown, as well as former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg who has put together a coalition of cities, companies and activists called “America’s Pledge” to help reduce US emissions.
Trump’s announcement that he will withdraw from the global pact, which the United States is the only nation to reject, has cast doubt on the viability of the deal which aims to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.