The United States and China have to lead the way in the fight against climate change, former USA president Barack Obama said Tuesday.
Today, White House advisors postponed a "key meeting" to discuss America's involvement in the Paris Agreement, Politico reports.
Trump, who has described climate change as a "hoax" perpetrated by China, has yet to announce whether he intends keeping a campaign promise to withdraw Washington from the Paris Agreement.
"We're going to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of USA tax dollars to United Nations global warming programs", Trump said in a speech in North Dakota on the campaign trail in 2016. He will make a decision when he returns from the G7 summit in Italy, not prior to that, as originally planned.
The actual dividing lines are blurrier, according to half a dozen people familiar with the discussions, and have shifted as aides get a clearer picture about what, precisely, withdrawing from the landmark climate pact would mean for the United States.
On Monday, the USA deputy assistant secretary for worldwide environmental affairs, David Balton, said the decision would likely be taken "over the next couple of weeks, but not this week". Former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, now U.S. secretary of state, is widely reported to be among those pushing for the USA to stick with the agreement.
But four months into his presidency, the Trump administration's position on the historic agreement endorsed by more than 190 nations remains in limbo, and it will send officials to three major worldwide meetings without having a formal position on the accord.
The official said the delay came amid scheduling conflicts.
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George Shultz - who served as secretary of state, secretary of labor, treasury secretary and director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Nixon and Reagan presidencies - lays out the argument in an op-ed published Tuesday in The New York Times with Ted Halstead, president of the Climate Leadership Council.
Trump has maintained he is committed to taking the USA out of the accord, which would severely weaken the agreement as the United States is the world's second-largest polluter.
He defended the Paris Agreement as a deal that would not reverse climate change but that had "put together the architecture" for a meaningful response.
Obama set targets to reduce emissions by 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
In Bonn, where representatives of the almost 200 countries that are party to the agreement are meeting to go through the technical aspects of implementing the accord, discussions are overshadowed by the uncertainty over Washington's position.
"He is going to protect the climate agreement", Haim said.
Macron and Trump spoke over the phone on Monday.
"If one nation, especially the biggest nation ... if they do not recognize a problem, then we will have trouble dealing with climate change", General Denis Mercier, NATO's supreme allied commander for transformation, told Reuters.
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