Reacción a "Trump signs the US back out of the Paris Agreement"

The Paris Agreement already proved to be much more resilient than we thought in Trump's first term in office. When he said at the time that he was pulling the US out of the Agreement, everyone trembled, but in the end the US stepped back and the EU stepped forward. The world has changed a lot geopolitically since Trump's first term in office. We now know that the step that the EU took will not happen because climate action has taken a back seat in Europe, but we do have other actors, such as China, who may or may not step up their climate action.

I remain optimistic, because of the resilience of the agreement and because, if we focus on the energy transition, it has an undeniable economic component. The markets and the economy are decarbonising and this is an inertia that, regardless of who is in the White House, cannot be stopped. We will continue to invest in renewables and move towards the decarbonisation of the economy. It is very likely that Trump will slow down the process, but I doubt he will be able to reverse it.

Trump's decision must be seen as a political statement to his voters. Before he took office, a number of US businessmen signed a letter asking him not to leave the Agreement because only from the inside could he torpedo it. I believe that, if Trump wanted to derail global climate action, he would have stayed in.

Finally, climate action in the US is going to focus on states and cities. The value of subnational governments is relevant and they must equip themselves with the economic and political tools to deal with situations like this, having Trump as president. State governors and city mayors are already organising to keep their climate goals on the international agenda.