/ Trump prepares to withdraw: NYT

US President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has prepared executive orders and proclamations on withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement and shrinking the size of some national monuments to allow more drilling and mining, the New York Times reported on Friday.
Trump is also expected to end the pause on permitting new liquefied natural gas exports to big markets in Asia and Europe and revoke a waiver that allows California and other states to have tighter pollution standards, according to the report.
Trump promised during his campaign to take many of the actions listed in the report. Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump transition team, said in a response to a Reuters request that the results of Tuesday’s election gave him a “mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver.”
The administration of President Joe Biden paused approvals of new LNG exports in January in order to complete a study on the environmental and economic impact of the exports. The US Energy Department will have a draft updated analysis out for a 60-day public comment period before the end of the year, a department official said.
Some people on the transition team are discussing moving the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency out of Washington, the report said, citing unnamed people involved in the discussions.
The development came as Trump’s victory in the US presidential election had already darkened the outlook for a strong deal at the COP29 climate summit next week and will increase pressure on Europe and China to lead international progress in curbing planetary warming.
Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, and his policy advisers have floated removing the US from the underlying UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ratified by the US Senate in 1992.
Climate negotiators and observers preparing for the COP29 conference from Nov. 11-22 in Baku, Azerbaijan, said Trump’s decisive win over Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 polls reduces the ability of countries to agree a new global finance target, or increase the pool of countries that should contribute – goals for the summit.
The EU and US had planned to push China and rich Gulf states to start paying into UN climate funds.
“Pushing for more ambitious climate finance is going to be almost impossible without the US buy-in, which will de-motivate developing countries from taking seriously the climate ambitions of the West,” said Elisabetta Cornago, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform.
Failure to land a strong climate finance deal would be a particularly big setback for the 45-country group of Least Developed Countries in UN climate negotiations, which is demanding countries pay up.
Any weakening in the US stance on tackling climate change, however, would make it vital for Europe and China to hold firm. The US, China, and the 27-country European Union are the world’s biggest historical polluters.
“If one of the three-legged pillars is wobbling or uncertain, the other two need to hold fast,” a European diplomat told Reuters.
US states and cities, meanwhile, are planning to step up and fill the US void at the upcoming climate summit to encourage other countries to keep working toward Paris climate goals.
The US Climate Alliance, America Is All In and Climate Mayors will send delegations to COP29. The groups were formed in 2017 after Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement the first time, a move the Biden administration reversed. They represent nearly two thirds of the U.S. population and three-quarters of US GDP.
A report by the University of Maryland in September found that if Biden administration climate laws and policies are rolled back, non-federal entities like states and cities can achieve a 48% emissions reduction by 2035 – falling short of previous US commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions at least 50% compared to 2005 levels by 2030.