The Group of 20 summit was held this past weekend virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a prerecorded speech taped from the White House, President Donald Trump doubled down on his position of the Paris Climate Accord. The president pulled out of the agreement in his first year in office, though the withdrawal was not finalized until November 2020. This is a decision that Biden has already promised to reverse. As discussed in class, the Paris Climate Accord allows each nation in it to make a voluntary “intended nationally determined contribution (INDC). In other words, states get to choose how much they want to cut back on emissions. Nonetheless, Trump has continued to make claims that “The Paris accord was not designed to save the environment, it was designed to kill the American economy.” His message stood in stark contrast to that of the other nations involved in the summit. While leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel focused on working together to solve climate change, Trump instead talked about his “conservation record in the United States.” However, he later seemed to contradict himself by touting the fact that America is supposedly number one in oil and natural gas production, even though both play a significant role in worsening climate change. This appearance will most likely be his last one at an international summit for this term.
By Rola Goke-Pariola
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/22/politics/trump-paris-climate-accord-g20/index.html
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