What many feared happened: after the US president rejected the Paris Agreement aimed at slowing climate change, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Disney CEO Bob Iger resigned from Trump’s advisory councils.
Musk put it on Twitter: “Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/870681901647567872
Reactions from around the world
President Donald Trump says he kept a promise to the voters who backed him. Globally the decision drew a sharp reaction. Recent polls had more than 80 percent of Americans saying the US should stay among Paris signatories.
Weather.com protested by blanketing its site with global warming coverage Trump prefers to ignore.
Among those who tried to change his mind were reportedly Ivanka Trump, Apple CEO Tim Cook and other Silicon Valley voices, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Musk’s own lobbying on the topic made the press too.
He campaigned on it
On the trail Trump called the deal “bad” and said he would cancel an agreement that hurt American workers. Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon is widely described as a key driver of the decision.
What happens next
Under current rules the US cannot fully exit Paris until 2020, which lines up with the next election cycle. If politics do not shift, Trump could keep pushing to undo the letter approval from Barack Obama, push domestic carbon cuts on his own terms, or simply signal intent.
Sources: BBC, weather.com, Twitter.
