Trump’s withdrawal is environmental injustice - Kenneth Amoateng

The historic agreement that pursued all efforts to limit global temperature increase to 1.5°C and the move by Donald Trump to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate agreement is an environmental injustice and failure of leadership.

His decision is a clear sign of his continued support of the fossil fuel industry, which is a directly threatens to human health and planet.

This was contained in a statement issued by Mr Kenneth Nana Amoateng, of Abibiman Foundation and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Monday.

According to the statement, the Paris Agreement is the world’s collective response to tackling climate change.

The science and the people all agree that the fossil fuel days are over now, let’s phase out subsidies for the fossil fuel industry while guarding against adverse impacts and promoting community-based decentralised renewable energy systems.

It said, President Donald Trump should show political will and commit resources towards promoting scientific and traditional knowledge for understanding the social and environmental costs and impacts of human activities and Commit to carbon emission reductions and provide new, adequate, predictable, and appropriate climate finance that contributed by countries from public resources.

The statement said in Ghana, we need technologies for eco-efficiency and work towards the elimination of waste; build infrastructure and mechanisms to reduce, recycle and reuse waste; and redesign products to ensure durability and optimum.

With a strong action from world leaders, we can scale up renewable energy and mitigation approaches that promote energy efficiency by cutting fossil fuel.

Pulling out of Paris would make it harder for local community to reach a safer and more prosperous future, it is time we hold our leaders accountable for their promises.