When President Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement on Monday as part of his flurry of moves upon taking office, it represented a shot across the bow of the world leaders and chief executives gathered in Davos, Switzerland.
Many of the political and business figures attending the World Economic Forum’s annual conference support efforts to combat climate change, including the Paris Agreement, which almost all nations agreed to in 2015. Pulling the United States out of the pact is a signal of both the administration’s lack of concern about rising planet-warming emissions, and also a rebuke of the kind of multilateralism that has come to define Davos.
The World Economic Forum’s annual gathering has a long-running focus on climate and the environment. “Safeguarding the planet” is one of the conference’s five themes this year, and surveys by the organization rank extreme weather as one of the world’s top threats.
For years, the policymakers and companies in Davos have promoted their efforts to reduce emissions, embrace clean energy and work collaboratively to blunt global warming.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said on Tuesday that President Trump’s actions would not lead Europe to change its plans. “Europe will stay the course and keep working with all nations that want to protect nature and stop global warming,” she said. “The Paris Agreement continues to be the best hope for all humanity.”
Simon Stiell, the United Nations climate chief, said the shift to clean power would happen with or without the United States.
“The world is undergoing an energy transition that is unstoppable,” he said, adding that the U.S. could rejoin the Paris pact at any time.
Corporate leaders were more circumspect in their remarks about Mr. Trump.
We Mean Business, a coalition of corporate advisory groups that support climate action, expressed frustration.
“While it is deeply disappointing that the new U.S. presidential administration has decided to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, one country’s decision does not change the global course of action,” the group said in a statement.
But executives were careful not to say anything that might offend the new president.
“I think we all knew Paris was coming,” said Kate Brandt, Google’s chief sustainability officer. “A lot of the early conversations we’ve been having with the new administration is around things like advanced nuclear, advanced geothermal, battery storage technology, the use cases of A.I.”
Kara Hurst, Amazon’s chief sustainability officer, said her company was not walking back its climate targets because of the president’s decision. “We’re dedicated to our goals,” she said. “We’re staying the course. We’re not veering from that. I think most of the corporates have long-term goals that they’ll keep.”
Activists were more forthright in their condemnation of Mr. Trump’s move to pull out of the Paris Agreement.
“No one country, let alone one man, can stop the global energy transition,” said Tzeporah Berman, a Canadian climate activist who is chairwoman of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. “Trump is desperately trying to hold onto the past even though the reality of our heavy dependence on fossil fuels is etched into the scorched landscape of Los Angeles. What he did yesterday will cost lives and hold Americans and the world back from protecting what we love.”
