President Trump announced his decision to withdraw the United States from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Paris Agreement. FCNL strongly denounces this decision, and urges the President to reconsider.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Emily Wirzba emily@fcnl.org Direct: 202-903-2518
June 1st, 2017, Washington, DC –
This afternoon, President Trump announced his decision to withdraw the United Stated from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Paris Agreement. The Friends Committee on National Legislation strongly denounces this decision, and urges the President to reconsider.
Diane Randall, Executive Secretary for FCNL, made the following statement:
“The Friends Committee on National Legislation is profoundly disappointed by President Trump’s decision to pull our nation from the Paris Agreement. Climate disruption threatens present and future generations on a breadth and scale unlike any challenge humanity has faced. As people of faith, we especially recognize the impacts of climate change upon the most vulnerable peoples. The Paris Agreement is the world’s collective first step towards meeting our shared responsibility for our future. For the President to abandon the agreement is to abandon this responsibility. This decision does not comport with the moral and theological values of countless faith traditions and people of good will. We pray the President will have a change of a heart. The U.S. must remain a global leader and contributor to the solutions of climate change, for the sake of our future and our Earth.”
Despite today’s announcement, the US cannot immediately withdraw from the agreement. This is a process that will take four years to complete, starting from November 4, 2016, when the Paris Agreement entered into force. The US will not officially be out of the agreement until one day after the 2020 presidential election.
FCNL reaffirms the need for strong US leadership and robust global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change. We have a moral obligation to stand with vulnerable communities, and reverse the climate crisis that places a disproportionate burden on women and children, communities of color, low-income communities, and tribal nations both in the US and globally.
We urge the President to work with Congress to develop and implement bipartisan solutions that will reduce emissions, protect God’s creation, and care for the most vulnerable communities.
The Friends Committee on National Legislation, the oldest registered religious lobby in Washington, is a nonpartisan Quaker lobby in the public interest. FCNL works with a nationwide network of tens of thousands of people from every state in the U.S. to advocate for social and economic justice, peace, and good government.
