Investors, politicians and businesses are intervening with US President Donald Trump’s threats to pull out of the Paris climate accord.
In a letter published on Monday, investors with over $15 trillion of assets under management urged Trump to remain in the Paris accord.
“As long-term institutional investors, we believe that the mitigation of climate change is essential for the safeguarding of our investments,” said the letter, signed by 214 institutional investors.
“We urge all nations to stand by their commitments to the Agreement,” it said.
Mindy Lubber, who helped coordinate the letter, said: “Climate change action must be an urgent priority in the G20 countries, especially the United States, whose commitment is in question,”
GE chairman and chief executive, Jeff Immelt, is also urging the US President, who famously stated that climate change is a “hoax”, to stay in the accord.
“We are for staying in the treaty. I think global engagement is a good thing,” he told an audience in Washington last week.
“As a company, we think that climate change is real. [Withdrawing from the Paris accord is] not going to change one thing that we do regarding energy efficiency . . . and I think all business is going to feel the same way.”
Jeff Immelt told the audience on Thursday that the Paris accord who progress businesses, not hold them back. GE now has a $12 billion renewable energy business that did not exist a decade ago, thanks to pressures to innovate and develop new technologies.
Theresa May is also facing pressure from the UK’s environmental groups to use her position to influence Trump to commit to the Paris agreement.
A joint letter from the heads of Oxfam, the RSPB, Greenpeace, WWF, as well as other environmental and development groups told the Prime Minister that Trump “may be about to undermine a vital global agreement on which the health, security, and prosperity of hundreds of millions of people depend”
“This climate agreement was an extraordinary feat of international diplomacy, and the UK played a crucial role in securing it. This is now the best chance humanity has to avert full-blown climate change, and may well be the last. A strong majority of people in the UK believe climate change is happening. They will be looking to you as the prime minister to champion science, moral responsibility and international cooperation,” the letter continued.
An online petition launched by Greenpeace calling on the Prime Minister to intervene had reached 78,000 signatories by Saturday evening.
The US President is expected to announce in coming days whether he will carry out a campaign threat to “cancel” the 2015 Paris Agreement.