As U.S. President-elect Donald Trump appears to soften his pledge to back out of the Paris climate agreement, ex-Democratic presidential candidate and former Rep. Dennis Kucinich told Devex Trump “cannot morally or logically ignore” the impacts of climate change.
The Paris agreement, ratified by the U.S. in September — aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and maintain the global increase in temperature to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — interferes with many aspects of Trump’s platform, including his pledge to rejuvenate domestic industries such as coal mining.
“We have an obligation to support the United Nations, we have an obligation to support treaties like the Paris climate agreement,” Kucinich told Devex in an interview on the sidelines of the Rising Global Peace Forum last week in Coventry, England.