The US Minister for Energy thinks it may be necessary to renegotiate the Paris Agreement on climate.
– The US can not do it by itself, Norway’s Minister for Climate and Environment, Vidar Helgesen, points out.
On Tuesday US Minister Rick Perry revealed what he would recommend President Donald John Trump to do regarding the Paris accord.
– I will not urge the President of the United States to scrap the agreement. But what I’m going to tell him is that we probably need to renegotiate it, Perry said during a conference organized by the Bloomberg media company in New York.
However, Minister for Climate and Environment, Vidar Helgesen (Conservatives), points out that the United States can not renegotiate the global climate agreement, adopted in Paris in 2015, on their own.
– No, the United States can not renegotiate the Paris agreement all by themselves, and there is no support for it internationally, Helgesen said.
– Under the Paris agreement, the countries’ emission targets are nationally determined, and a possible reassessment of US ambitions is something they must consider and take responsibility for themselves, Helgesen told NTB on Wednesday.
Reprimand
At the New York conference, Perry stated that the United States and China had made great efforts to reduce harmful emissions while questioning whether France and Germany are doing enough.
As an example, he highlighted Germany:
– The fact is that their emissions have increased because they use more coal, and they use coal which is, as you know, not pure technology.
– We have to sit down and they have to start taking this seriously, he added.
– My point is: Do not sign an agreement and expect that we follow up the agreement if you do not really intend to participate and be a part of it.
The Trump Administration has however sent out contradictory signals on how the United States will regard the Paris agreement. Perry’s statement came only one and a half weeks after the new head of the US Environment Directorate (EPA), Scott Pruitt, said that the US must leave the climate agreement.
Determined in May
Additionally, among President Donald John Trump’s closest associates, the views on the agreement are highly divided. Chief strategist Steve Bannon is, for example, against it while Foreign Secretary Rex Tillerson and Trump’s daughter Ivanka are positive to the deal, according to US media.
During the election campaign last year, Trump was very clear and said he would ‘cancel’ the agreement. After becoming President, he has ordered to rescind a number of American climate measures.
It is expected that the Trump Government will make a decision on the Paris agreement sometime in May. The head of the UN Environment Program and former leader of the Socialist Party, Erik Solheim, on Monday said that he believes the United States will stick to the accord.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
