Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement creates “profound challenges” to those seeking to protect the environment, international development organisation Jesuit Missions has said.
President Trump signed an executive order after his inauguration yesterday (Monday, 20 January) that removes his country – the world’s second-biggest emitter of planet-heating pollution – from the 2016 treaty on climate change.
He described the pact as an “unfair, one-sided rip off” and vowed to “make America affordable and energy dominant again”.
Richard Solly, Advocacy and Campaigns Officer at Jesuit Missions, said the announcement was another example of developed nations putting profit before people and the planet.
“The inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the USA presents profound challenges for all of us working to combat climate change,” he said.
“In response, banks and other financial institutions are pulling out of investment alliances formed to try to ensure that funding would progressively move away from high-carbon activities and towards products and activities necessary for a low-carbon transition.
“They take the view, it seems, that more money is now to be made by pursuing business as usual.”
Jesuit Missions has placed combatting climate change at the forefront of its campaigning work, given the devastating impact it has on the poorer nations where it works.
Mr Solly acknowledged that seeing global leaders and big businesses disregard the effects of climate change means “it is hard to find signs of hope”.
However, he urged climate campaigners and those of faith to continue to strive for environmental justice.
“Maintaining hope is precisely what is needed if we are to avoid defeat in the struggle to defend the Earth,” he added.
“This year is a Year of Jubilee for the Catholic Church, and the Pope calls on all of us to become ‘signs of hope’.
“However bad things get, we are called to embody God’s redemptive presence in the world. If one door to action closes, we must open another. The only guarantor of defeat is that we give way to despair.
“Let us continue to pray as if everything depended on God and act as if everything depended on us, confident that God is a God of life and not of death, and that God will strengthen us to do whatever is necessary to protect God’s good and beautiful creation.”
It is the second time President Trump has issued the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.
He took the same decision during his first term of office in 2020, before his successor, Joe Biden, reinstated the country.
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