Climate change is proceeding to be an issue that is affecting the world. The Trump administration recently announced a plan to withdraw the nomination of Kathleen Hartnett White, a climate change skeptic, to lead the Council on Environmental Quality. Withdrawing White’s nomination contrasts previous actions by the administration that show disbelief in climate change.
In 2015, 195 countries signed the Paris Agreement, committing to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help combat climate change.”
On Wednesday, Nov. 15 the United Nations came together in Bonn, Germany to have the United Nations Climate Change Conference. At the conference, M. Wadah Katmawki, Syria’s deputy minister of local administration and environment, announced that Syria would join the Paris deal.
According to the United Nations, “The Paris Agreement’s central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”
Syria agreeing to become part of the Paris climate accord leaves the United States the only country not on board. Trump announced an intent to withdraw from the Paris climate accord last summer.
White was selected to be the White House senior environmental adviser. Withdrawing her nomination may signal a change in the U.S.’s policy on climate change.
Pew Research Center conducted a survey in 2016 and reported that 48 percent of Americans say Earth is warming due to human activity and the other 51 percent say it is because of natural patterns or there is no solid evidence.
“I don’t believe in climate change. History has shown us over and over again the heating and cooling of our earth. The Ice Age and the melting of it. There were no man-made hazardous gasses way back then,” Katie Toff, owner at KT Medical Billing LLC, said.
“I am baffled that people do not believe in climate change. I think they do not believe in it because they do not have the need to learn about,” Fernando Cornejo, sophomore psychology major, said.
Since the 19th century, the planet’s average surface temperature has risen two degrees centigrade. According to NASA, this rise has been driven by an increase in carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere.
According to Pew Research Center, one-in-five Americans try to act on their concern for the environment all the time.
“When I am home, I use my bike instead of my car. I only drive if I really have to,” Cornejo said.
“I am from Ecuador and our climate has changed over the past couple years. Farms are not as productive as they used to be and the farmers are facing a lot of challenges,” graduate student Aide Cuenca said.
