WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing the formal withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, according to three people briefed on the matter, a long expected move that nevertheless remains a powerful signal to the world. The official action is a procedural one, setting in motion a withdrawal that still would take a year to complete under the rules of the accord. Mr. Trump is expected to celebrate leaving the Paris agreement when he speaks at a natural gas conference organized by the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry trade group, on Wednesday afternoon. The event is in Pittsburgh, a city he specifically referenced when he declared in a 2017 Rose Garden speech his intention to leave the international agreement. At that time, he proclaimed he was elected to represent “the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”A spokesman for the State Department declined to say whether the agency has drafted its notice to the United Nations that will start the yearlong clock before the United States can officially separate itself from the global effort to curb global warming.

Source: International New York Times October 23, 2019 17:37 UTC