President Donald Trump is expected to announce his intent to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate change accord in an afternoon ceremony in the White House's Rose Garden.

Myron Ebell, the head of Trump's environmental division during the presidential transition, said Thursday morning that 'all signs are good' for a Paris exit and he does not believe 'the president is going to disappoint.'

The White House insider and director of global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute told DailyMail.com, 'I think you can take it to the bank that he's going withdraw.'

A spokesman for the Heartland Institute, Jim Lakely, said the conservative organization's president was headed to Washington for the ceremony at the invitation of the White House.

'I don’t think they’d invite him if the Ivanka/Jared side of the tug-of-war on this issue won the argument,' he concurred.

After a period of intense lobbying that spanned the globe - and his administration - White House officials told several news outlets Wednesday that Trump was pulling the US out of the international agreement.

Those claims were watered down with warnings that Trump could change his mind as the day wore on and pro-Paris forces inside and the White House made a final push for the US the stick to plan.

President Donald Trump is expected to announce his intent to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate change accord in an afternoon ceremony in the White House's Rose Garden

Trump said in a Wednesday evening tweet that he would put put an end to the speculation today following reports citing White House sources who said he had made up his mind to leave the international agreement

Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google, Gap, Mars and Tiffany & Co. joined a group of large businesses in publishing an open letter to Trump asking him not to end the United States participation in the global warming agreement

Among the intense last-minute lobbying was a warning from the Vatican that a U.S. exit would be a slap in the face and a 'disaster for everyone.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin urged Trump in a separate meeting not to quit the Paris accord.

'If he really does [pull out], it would be a huge slap in the face for us,' said Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, head of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which has hosted numerous international conferences on climate change.

'It will be a disaster for everyone,' he told La Repubblica.

Trump said in a Wednesday evening tweet that he would put put an end to the speculation today following reports citing White House sources who said he had made up his mind to leave the international agreement.

'I will be announcing my decision on Paris Accord, Thursday at 3PM. The White House Rose Garden. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!' he tweeted.

Trump told reporters earlier on Wednesday that he would be making a decision 'very soon' on the climate change accord and was still listening to arguments for and against the pact.

'I'm hearing from a lot of people, both ways,' Trump said in an Oval Office aside.

The president would not hint at his aims, telling a reporter who asked if he was likely to get out, 'You’re going to find out very soon.'

Myron Ebell, the head of Trump's environmental division during the presidential transition, told DailyMail.com: 'I think you can take it to the bank that he's going withdraw'

He offered a similar response to a journalist who caught him outside the White House an hour later. 'We'll be talking about Paris very soon,' he said of the announcement.

Hours before, officials said he was definitely leaving the agreement.

Then, one said told the AP the administration was looking for 'caveats in the language' and Trump's mind was not fully made up.

Ebell told DailyMail.com then that the situation was fluid.

'It's it's looking good but we're not totally out of the woods yet,' the energy expert said.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said he 'obviously' would not know if Trump had arrived at a decision and would not say whether the earlier reports were true during a Wednesday afternoon briefing.

'I think the president's comments on this, that he'll be making a decision in the next few days, stand,' Spicer said in a shorter than usual session with the press that was held off camera.

Ebell said Thursday that he was now certain that Trump was yanking the US out. He and his colleagues at CEI have been invited to the president's declaration in the Rose Garden.

'I don't think the president is going to disappoint,' he said, noting that it would be odd for Trump to take a position contrary to his own and invite him to witness it.

Lakely made a similar observation in an exchange with DailyMail.com about Heartland President Joseph Bast's invitation. Heartland has been at the forefront of the push to get out of the agreement, like CEI.

European allies had begged Trump not to ditch the pact last week, and the White House said the president was considering their position.

When White House sources said he was pulling out on Wednesday morning, the reports set off worldwide condemnation led by the United Nations secretary general.

Trump's eldest daughter, Ivanka, had advised her father against an exit, as well as a series of world leaders, including the Pope and France's new president, Emmanuel Macron.

Billionaire Elon Musk said he would end his role advising Trump on manufacturing if the White House went ahead with quitting the Paris deal.

Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google, Gap, Mars and Tiffany & Co. joined a group of large businesses in publishing an open letter to Trump asking him not to end the United States participation in the global warming agreement.

Their ask ran as a full page ad in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

Pulling out will mean the U.S. joins Russia, Iran, North Korea and a string of Third World countries in not putting the agreement into action. Just two countries are not in the deal at all - one of them war-torn Syria, the other Nicaragua.

The president said Wednesday morning in a tweet that he would be making an announcement 'over the next few days' after Axios said he was moving forward with plans to pull the US from it.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson suggested that Trump didn't understand science

Trump said Wednesday that continued to listen to both sides of the issue, after White House officials said he'd already made up his mind

Sales Force CEO Marc Benioff sent Trump a letter signed by companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook, urging him to keep the US in the accord

PARIS PROTEST: Dan Ingram, right, told DailyMail.com that his wife Marione, left, is a 'Holocaust survivor' during a chat outside the White House on Thursday

The news outlet said Trump had decided to stick with a campaign promise to pull the US out of the accord that commits participants to drastically reducing greenhouse gases, siding with conservatives in his party over his daughter.

Reuters similarly reported that Trump had tasked his EPA administrator with finding a way out - then hedged and said the president could still stay in.

Trump said after his foreign trip that he would make an announcement this week about Paris.

He teased his plans again in a Wednesday morning tweet that said, 'I will be announcing my decision on the Paris Accord over the next few days. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!'

Axios reported that Trump had taken a position, and it was the method of withdraw that was still being worked out.

The administration is determining between a formal exit from just the Paris Agreement, a process that could take years, and a total rejection of the United Nations climate change framework that serves as the basis for the pact.

PRIME MINISTERS AND PRESIDENTS LINE UP AGAINST TRUMP Countries which have decided to stay in Paris were swift to speak out about the impending move to pull out of the climate accord including: United Nations: Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: 'Climate change is undeniable. Climate change is unstoppable. 'Climate solutions provide opportunities that are unmatchable.' Finland: Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila said climate change won't be reversed 'by closing your eyes' and called the expected withdrawal 'a big setback'. China: Will reiterate support for Paris agreement this week during visit by prime minister Li Kequiang to Europe, European Union official told Reuters European Union: President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani said: 'Climate change is not a fairy tale. It is a tough reality which affects peoples' daily lives.' Advertisement

Spicer hedged at his Wednesday afternoon briefing that the White House kept off camera when DailyMail.com asked him if the reports were wrong.

'No, what I am saying is that when the president has a decision to make he'll let it be known,' Trump's spokesman said. 'I don't think whether it's a personnel decision or any other action that we tend to get ahead of the president, he's the ultimate decider and when he has a decision to make, I'll let you know.'

Ebell, the energy expert at CEI who was also the head of Trump's EPA team during his transition, said just before Spicer's 'gaggle' that it was his belief that Trump would say he's getting the US out, 'but we're not celebrating yet.'

He told DailyMail.com he was advised by a White House official, 'Don't t take this as a done deal until announced.'

'The other side is making a furious counter attack now,' Ebell said.

Heartland's Lakely said Thursday that he sees four scenarios for a Paris exit, any of which could be announced today.

The least optimal and most unlikely scenario is that Trump announces that he'll meet some of the Paris commitments and ignore the rest.

If Trump says he's 'canceling the agreement, basically erasing Obama’s signature,' that would be fine, Lakely said, but lawsuits would 'proliferate over the three years it takes to exit.'

The better case would be a decision by Trump to send the agreement 'which is really a treaty, to the Senate for ratification as the Constitution demands.

'The Senate fails to get the two-thirds votes necessary to ratify the treaty, and it’s really dead, instantly,' he said.

Heartland believes the best strategy is to withdraw from the United States from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change entirely.

Trump told a reporter who caught him outside the White House on Wednesday: 'We'll be talking about Paris very soon.' He did not provide any hints at what he might say today

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said pulling out with be 'horribly destructive'

The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation urged Trump to withdraw

US officials insisted throughout May that Trump was keeping an 'open mind' on the agreement that 147 nations consented to and nearly every nation on earth said they supported.

Trump wanted to hear from world leaders on the topic as he traveled through Europe.

As his nine days abroad came to a close, Trump's advisers claimed he had not taken a firm position on Paris and would not until he returned to the US.

‘The president is thinking about what his options are and has taken in what he learned from world leaders today,' Trump's chief economic advisor, Gary Cohn, said Friday. ‘I think his views are evolving, and he came here to learn and he came here to get smarter and he came here to hear peoples' - world leaders' - views.'

Spicer on Wednesday said Trump had 'listened to a lot of people both here and industry leaders.'

'As Director Cohn mentioned last week he's consulted with foreign leaders, he's talked to industry leaders, he's had a lot of input and ultimately he'll make a decision. '

Emmanuel Macron, the newly elected French president, said at a weekend summit in Italy he was sure Trump would back the deal after listening to his G7 counterparts.

That hope appeared to have been quickly dashed. At a Wednesday news conference, a government spokesman said Macron had told a cabinet meeting France would be ‘very pro-active’ in working to ensure the Paris accord was implemented.

‘Depending on the stance some people or others are taking, we'll have to be very pro-active for France to be the homeland of the (fight against) climate change,’ the spokesman said.

The president said Wednesday morning in a tweet that he would be making an announcement 'over the next few days' following a report that he was moving forward with plans to pull the US from it

Ignored: Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner spent Wednesday away from the White House and with their children as they observed the Orthodox Jewish holiday of Shavuot

Intervention: Billionaire Elon Musk said that he would end his connection to the White House if the president went ahead with ending the Paris agreement

Macron had ‘asked his ministers to take a number of initiatives, with our European partners or directly in France’.

European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic said of a U.S. pullout: ‘It would be disappointing but I really do not think this would change the course of mankind.

‘There is a much stronger expectation from our partners across the world from Africa, Asia and China that Europe should assume leadership in this effort and we are ready to do that.’

WHAT IS THE PARIS AGREEMENT? The Paris Agreement is the first large-scale global agreement to combat what scientists say is climate change, coming together at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2015 and adopted on December 12. On Earth Day of 2016, April 22, it was opened for signatures and enough European countries signed on so that the agreement entered into force on November 4, 2016, four days before Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. China and the United States had already committed to backing the deal in September 2016, with their greenhouse gas output accounting for nearly 40 percent of the world's emissions. To go into legal force, countries accounting for 55 percent of the world's emissions had to sign on. The deal asks that the countries signing on reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Right now 147 countries have ratified the agreement to the 197 who attended the convention. The aim is to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius - 3.6F - this century. Part of the reason the Paris Agreement was successful was that ratifying countries can decide independently how to reduce their emissions rather than being told how much to cut by. Counties, instead, put forward their best efforts through 'nationally determined contributions.' The binding part of the agreement makes countries report on their progress decreasing emissions, while the actual setting of emission-reduction targets is non-binding. The United States said it would try to reduce emissions from its 2005 level by 17 percent in 2020 and 26 to 28 percent by 2025.


Trump's most senior aides and cabinet secretaries have lined up on either side of the issue.

Cohn joined Trump's daughter and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Security Advsior HR McMaster in a campaign to remain in the accord that Barack Obama's administration negotiated.

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt and Vice President Mike Pence were strongly against staying in the pact that requires the US to cut emissions by 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Domestic Policy Council director Andrew Bremberg, and three senior advisors to the president - Kellyanne Conway, Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller - came in behind the Environmental Protection Agency head and the vice president.

A senior official told DailyMail.com as Trump prepared to make his first trip abroad that administration lawyers was battling over a proposal that would allow the US remain in the agreement, even if it does take steps to meet its nationally determined contribution to emissions reduction.

'That is not something that we can support, obviously,' the source said of the Obama-negotiated NDC that starts at 17 percent in 2020 and ramps up.

Some administration lawyers said a strategy like the one that was being debated would create significant legal risk for the United States and it would be better for Trump to stick to his campaign plan of full withdraw.

White House counsel Don McGhan is said to have overruled career State Department lawyers in the end and advised Trump to withdraw.

Kushner was said to be leaning in that direction as of this week, too.

'His basic position is that the standards need to be changed and the question is can you stay in the Paris agreement and can you stay in the Paris agreement with the changes?' an administration official familiar with the situation told DailyMail.com.

The United States European allies argued in private meetings with Trump that the US, the world's largest polluter after China, must remain in the agreement that urges aggressive action to protect the environment.

They signed a communique at the end of the G7 summit that excluded the United States so they could reiterate their position.

Hoping, perhaps, that a divine intervention would do the trick, the Pope also tried to sway Trump when they met at the Vatican last Wednesday. The head of the Catholic Church presented the president and first lady with a copy of his 184-page encyclical on the environment during a gift giving ceremony.

Trump promised the religious leader that he'd 'be reading' it.

Even Pope Francis got involved in the decision with worldwide repercussions. He presented Trump with with his encyclical on the environment during a customary gift exchange last week at the Vatican

Deal's off: This was how Barack Obama signed the United States up to the Paris agreement

WHO ELSE ISN'T IN PARIS DEAL? Just two countries did not sign up to the Paris deal at all - Syria and Nicaragua. Whether the United States joins them or the larger group of 195 countries which signed the Paris Agreement but have still to ratify it or bring it into force remains to be seen. The 50 countries which have yet to fully implement it are: Angola

Burundi

Colombia

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Dominican Republic

Egypt

Eritrea

Haiti

Iraq

Kyrgyzstan

Liberia

Lichtenstein

Montenegro

Myanmar

Oman

Moldova

Russian Federation

San Marino

South Sudan

Suriname

Macedonia

Togo

Turkey

Uzbekistan

Yemen Bhutan

Cape Verde

Czech Republic

North Korea

Ecuador

Equatorial Guinea

Guinea-Bissau

Iran

Kuwait

Lebanon

Libya

Malawi

Mozambique

Netherlands

Qatar

Romania

Samoa ( ratified only )

Serbia

Sudan

Switzerland

East Timor

Trinidad and Tobago

Tanzania

Venezuela

Zimbabwe Advertisement

As Trump waffled on the issue ahead of a self-imposed deadline to make a decision before the G7 summit that was shot after he bumped up his departure date, conservative organizations prodded the Republican president to stay on track.

A group of think tanks, including Heartland, CEI and the Heritage Foundation, sent the president a letter reminding him that withdrawal is a 'key part of your plan to protect U.S. energy producers and manufacturers from regulatory warfare.'

The Competitive Enterprise Institute followed up with ads that ran in nearly 70 markets the day before Trump departed for Saudi Arabia, urging him to keep his campaign promise to 'cancel' the environmental accord.

The United States' ability to meets its nationally determined contribution to the Paris Agreement hinged on the implementation of carbon reduction plan that Trump said he'd work to toss out.

CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENTISTS GO TO WAR ON TRUMP Scientists who have campaigned for the Paris accord rushed to condemn the White House on Wednesday. 'Today's rumors from unnamed sources at the White House are an indication that some of President Trump's ideology-driven advisers are trying to bounce him into withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. 'A withdrawal from the Paris Agreement is likely to make it more difficult for the United States Government and companies to make trade and business deals with their counterparts in other countries where there is greater understanding of the risks of climate change and of the benefits of low-carbon economic growth.' Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, England. 'If Paris is abandoned or weakened, I fear for the future of our children. 'Even more, I fear for the future of children in developing countries, who have contributed little to the problem and will feel the impacts first. Where will they go?' Gabi Hegerl, professor of climate system science, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. 'While it would be unfortunate if Trump pulled the US out of the Paris agreement, the momentum is so great and supported by so many nations that it will be no more than an unwelcome bump in the road rather than anything more serious. 'Individual states such as California will carry on doing what the rest of the world knows is the right thing to do on combating climate change.' Jonathan Bamber, director of the Bristol Glaciology Centre at the University of Bristol,England. Advertisement

Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, warned Trump on Wednesday that his actions are likely to have long-lasting repercussions on the US economy and the United States' standing internationally.

'I think that our credibility will be undermined,' he said on CNN.

Other countries like China will fill the gap with green energy jobs and 'surpass us' in those industries, he argued on the network's New Day program.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi also argued that withdraw would send a 'strong message to the marketplace to direct innovative, entrepreneurial investments in the clean energy economy elsewhere.'

'The majority of Americans in both parties know that climate change is real, and want clear, decisive action to arrest its dire effects,' she said in a jab at the president who once claimed climate chance is a 'hoax.'

Democratic lawmakers hammered Trump in statements on Wednesday that called the impending retreat 'catastrophic' and 'dangerous.'

'A decision by President Trump to withdraw the United States from this agreement would be a historic blunder that would put the interests of a few big polluters and climate deniers before American security, the economy, and the environment,' New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker said. 'The rest of the world is charging ahead with or without the support of the United States government.

'The United States can either lead the world and reap the benefits of new jobs, new innovation, and new opportunities, or the world can leave us behind,' he added.

Diane Feinstein, a California Democrat, asked Trump to reconsider before he makes a 'reckless mistake that will have serious and dire consequences.'

Putting the argument in the context of the Syrian refugees Trump has tried to keep out of the US, Feinstein said, 'The world was not prepared for 5 million refugees from Syria. What will we do when many millions more are displaced by sea level rise, agricultural failures or disease pandemics?'

The Sierra Club, a liberal environmental group, said the Paris Agreement would hold fast, regardless of what Trump does in a statement that slammed him as the nation's 'climate denier-in-chief.'

'Make no mistake: the Paris Agreement was adopted after decades of climate advocacy by concerned citizens across America and around the world, and it certainly will not be derailed by the ignorance of one man,' said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune.

Republicans like Lee who'd cheered Trump on not surprisingly came to his defense as he took fire from the left for the expected announcement.

'The decision to withdraw will afford Americans greater economic opportunity and cheaper, more flexible energy choices in the future,' the Utah senator said.

David McIntosh, president of the conservative Club for Growth, slammed the Obama administration for allowing 'foreign governments and alarmist environmentalists to dictate, not only climate change policy, but worse our nation’s economic policy.

'President Trump’s decision sends a strong message to the environmentalist movement: no longer will the United States be strong armed by their scare tactics intended to harm our economy and inhibit economic growth.'

Fred Palmer, a senior fellow at the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, likewise said that 'Obama abused the formidable power of the presidency to drive an agenda to eliminate fossil fuel use in the name of a phantom vision based on everything but sound science and common sense.

'The Obama approach was to make energy in the U.S. scarce and expensive, resulting in real suffering for working men and women. President Trump has understood this from the start, and it appears he will make the absolutely correct and necessary decision to withdraw from Paris.'

Applauding Trump on Tuesday, Heartland President Joseph Bast said the coming Paris announcement provides the Republican with an opportunity to 'show he has what it takes to become one of America’s greatest presidents.'



