White House press secretary said Tuesday that a decision on whether the US will withdrawal from the Paris climate accord will not come before the G-7 summit in Italy next month.
The White House originally said that Trump hoped to decide by the meeting - held in Sicily in late May - whether to pull the United States from the landmark climate pact.
USA officials plan to meet Tuesday in Washington to discuss whether to withdraw from the Paris deal that Trump has said he would "cancel" - or find a way to back away from emissions targets set by the Obama administration.
Under former President Barack Obama, the United States and China issued several joint statements on climate change, even announcing together they would sign the Paris agreement. He'd originally planned to make the decision before traveling to the May 26-27 G7 summit in Italy.
The core of the Paris deal was an agreement between Chinese President Xi Jinping and then U.S. president Barack Obama.
The delay means that the Trump administration will have to navigate three critical global meetings this month alone without formulating its position on climate policy: The current meeting in Bonn, Germany, which is focused on implementing the Paris agreement, the Arctic Council meeting in Fairbanks later this week, where the changes in the ice cover will also be on the agenda, and the G-7 gathering.
Now, after months of uncertainty, he appears to be edging towards a decision on whether to honour the landmark 2015 agreement to limit global warming.
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Uncertainty over America's future has already loomed large during the 11-day meeting to work out the nuts and bolts of implementing the worldwide deal, which Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, was instrumental in bringing about.
The postponement also allows more time for top administration officials to hash out the potential benefits and legal risks of remaining in the global carbon-cutting pact reached among almost 200 nations in December 2015. In April, a group of multinational companies including Apple, DuPont, BP and Shell sent a letter "expressing our support for continued participation by the United States in the Paris climate change agreement".
"There is the risk of rendering the Paris Agreement nearly meaningless [with diminished commitments]", he said.
According to White House officials, Mr. Trump's eldest daughter Ivanka was set to meet with Cabinet officials and department heads to discuss whether to abandon the treaty altogether.
Images/Paul SakumaOne of President Trump's favorite jewelry companies is calling him out on social media. Tiffany & Co. calls itself a sustainable brand and boasts using recycled paper to make its iconic blue boxes and pledging to cut down to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The former president said climate change "is already making it more hard to produce food".
But David Balton, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary for worldwide environmental affairs, said Monday: "The last thing I heard is that the president, our president, has indicated that he plans to make a decision some time over the next couple of weeks, but not this week".
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