Last night, President Donald Trump made a formal request to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. From 4 November 2020, the USA will no longer be a party to the Paris Agreement, one day after the presidential elections.

Bas Eickhout MEP, Greens/EFA Vice-Chair of the Environment Committee in the European Parliament, comments: "Donald Trump is shirking the USA's responsibility to the world and to its own people by pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement. While California burns and the IPCC warns us about the huge risks stemming from rapid sea level rise for whole swathes of US land, the American President is attacking his country's future.

Luckily, Trump cannot halt the fact that renewables simply make economic sense, nor can he stop the climate action that is happening within the US at local and state level. "The fact that the US is has abandoned the global climate stage, makes it even more important that the EU steps up its game and leads the way at international climate negotiations.

The new Climate Commissioner, Frans Timmermans, should start by proposing higher climate targets of reducing CO2 emissions by at least 65 percent by 2030."

More: The next UN climate conference from 2 to 13 December 2019 was moved from Santiago de Chile to Madrid. Before the COP the next global climate strike will take place on 29 November.