A United Nations report published Wednesday highlights the legal risks that opponents say President Donald Trump faces if he does not withdraw from Paris climate agreement.
The Paris Agreement could be used to force governments, including the Trump administration, “that have adopted climate-oriented laws to implement them,” reads the UN Environmental Program report on global warming litigation.
The report claims that litigation “has arguably never been a more important tool to push policymakers and market participants” to fight global warming.
President Donald Trump promised to “cancel” the Paris Agreement on the campaign trail, but his White House is split on the issue. Opponents of the Paris Agreement argue that failure to withdraw could give environmentalists a legal avenue to keep Obama-era global warming policies in place.
The UNEP report notes that while Paris does not impose legally-binding requirements for countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions, it “enables litigants to construe governments’ commitments and actions as being adequate or inadequate.”
“The key question, which this cryptically addresses, is the legal risk that results from staying in Paris,” Horner said.
“I understand that has been internally conceded even by the State Department legal advocates,” Horner said, noting that a recent State Department memodid not include these doubts.
