UN climate chief says door still open to Paris deal Paris, Jan 20 (AFP) Jan 20, 2025 The UN climate chief said Monday the "door remains open" to the landmark Paris accord after US President Donald Trump vowed to pull his country out of it for the second time. "The door remains open to the Paris Agreement, and we welcome constructive engagement from any and all countries," UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said in a statement, insisting the clean energy transition was an opportunity for economic growth. Trump at his inauguration Monday announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the accord, in a defiant rejection of global efforts to combat planetary warming as catastrophic weather events intensify worldwide. He had made a similar announcement after starting his first term in 2017, a move later reversed by his successor Joe Biden. The Republican leader also on Monday announced moves to significantly expand drilling in the world's top oil and gas producer. Stiell insisted: "The global clean energy boom -- worth $2 trillion last year alone and rising fast -- is the economic growth deal of the decade. "Embracing it will mean massive profits, millions of manufacturing jobs and clean air," he added. "Ignoring it only sends all that vast wealth to competitor economies, while climate disasters like droughts, wildfires and superstorms keep getting worse, destroying property and businesses, hitting nation-wide food production, and driving economy-wide price inflation." Scientists agree that the burning of fossil fuels has driven global temperatures to unprecedented levels, contributing to increasingly severe climate-driven disasters. Global average temperatures over the past two years surpassed the critical 1.5 degrees Celsius warming threshold flagged up by the Paris agreement. |
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