Climate Accord Opt-out: NY Officials React To Trump's Decision

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — In the wake of President Donald Trump’s Rose Garden announcement Thursday to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, local and state officials have reacted largely negatively. The president had promised to pull out of the agreement during his campaign. He also said he would begin new negotiations to either re-enter the agreement or come up with a complete new one that he said would be more fair to Americans.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, called the president’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord “irresponsibly shortsighted and harmful to the United States.

“There is no credible doubt that climate change is real and is caused by human activity,” she said. “We have irrefutable data that temperatures are rising, Arctic ice is melting, sea levels are rising and extreme weather is becoming more severe.”

Gillibrand said, for the sake of the country and its future, the president “must quickly embrace the truth that climate change is real, and act on it.”

Rep. John Faso, R-Kinderhook, is a member of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus and said he supports U.S. efforts to continue promotion of innovative clean-energy solutions which will mitigate the effects of man-made climate change.

“As such, I believe the withdrawal of the U.S. from the agreement is ill-advised,” he said.

“However, the non-binding Paris COP21 never received Senate approval, as treaties must under our Constitution,” Faso said.

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He said that, regardless of who is in the White House, “I believe the U.S. must continue to work to lower greenhouse gas emissions while balancing the needs of our economy. At the end of the day, economic incentives for cleaner, less-polluting energy will have a greater impact on reducing CO2 emissions than a non-binding agreement with no enforcement mechanisms.’

Rep. Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, reacting to reports that Trump would pull out of the climate agreement, said it would “fundamentally undermine American global leadership and endanger the future of our planet.”

She said that the Paris Climate Accords, which were signed by 195 nations, were critical to ensuring a unified, global response to combating rising carbon dioxide levels “that erode our national security, risk flooding our coastal cities, exacerbate famine and water shortages and increase the destructive scale of natural disasters.

Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said the White House’s decision to withdraw from the agreement was reckless.

“This administration is abdicating its leadership and taking a backseat to other countries in the global fight against climate change,” he said, adding that New York was committed to meeting the standards set forth in the Paris Accord.

“We will not ignore the science and reality of climate change which is why I am also signing an executive order confirming New York’s leadership role in protecting our citizens, our environment and our planet,” Cuomo said.

Cuomo, along with California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. and Washington State Governor Jay R. Inslee, announced the formation of the United States Climate Alliance, a coalition that will convene U.S. states committed to upholding the Paris Climate Agreement and taking, what they describe as, aggressive action on climate change.

Ulster County Executive Mike Hein, a Democrat, said that it was now time to enhance local environmental efforts.

“Fostering a sustainable environment should not be a partisan issue, but instead a question of science and sanity,” he said.

Hein said that the county will continue to move forward and lead with environmental initiatives that exceed the framework of the Paris Accord.

“We have an obligation to act in the face of a decision that is an insult to people of conscience across the world and I believe a national disgrace,” he said.

“We cannot sit idly by and cast aside protection designed to ensure a future that includes a clean and lasting environment for our children and our children’s children,” Hein said.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article had the wrong party affiliation for Rep. Nita Lowey. She is a Democrat. Patch regrets the error.

Additional reporting by Cody Fenwick (Patch National Staff).

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images