WEB DESK
The United States is on track to meet the targets of the Paris climate agreement despite President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw from the accord.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that emissions-cutting plans put in motion by American businesses, regional governments and cities meant that the goals set by the former US administration which signed the deal in 2016 were within reach.
Guterres told reporters at UN headquarters in New York, that there were expectations that, independently of the position of the administration, the US might be able to meet the commitments made in Paris as a country.
Under the deal, the administration of former president Barack Obama pledged to cut by 2025, domestic greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels. Nearly 200 countries and parties have signed the landmark agreement after intense negotiations in Paris, where all nations made voluntary carbon-cutting pledges running to 2030.
The agreement is aimed at limiting global warming to within two degrees Celsius, but Guterres warned that more action was needed by 2020 to reach that goal.Trump announced in June last year that the US was pulling out, painting the accord as a bad deal for the US economy.