President Trump Announces U.S. to Withdraw from Paris Climate Agreement

Today, President Trump announced that the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, a 195-nation pact negotiated in 2015 that seeks to lower global emissions through non-binding commitments from each country. 

In the official Position Statement on Nuclear Energy's Role in Climate Change Policy, the American Nuclear Society said, "The consensus of the international community of climate scientists is that humans are having an adverse influence on the climate system. While the state of climate science is still maturing, the American Nuclear Society (ANS) believes that the risks presented by rising temperatures are sufficiently large to warrant enactment of policies designed to limit emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as a means of abating these risks. ANS therefore supports the principal objective of the Paris Agreement, along with state and national initiatives designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from human activities."

“The United States has an opportunity to be a world leader and stimulate significant economic development related to the clean energy sector,” noted ANS President Andrew C. Klein. “Pulling out of the Paris accord is likely to significantly hinder that leadership and growth. Regardless,” he added, “American Nuclear Society members will continue their research and advocacy for expanding nuclear energy as an essential part of the clean energy mix of the future.”

The Paris Agreement’s main goal was to strengthen global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.