Germany: Climate will last longer than Trump presidency

In this Jan. 20, 2015 file photo, a plume of steam billows from the coal-fired Merrimack Station in Bow, N.H. President Donald Trump said the United States “will continue to be the cleanest and most environmentally friendly country on Earth” as he announced pulling out of an international accord designed to curb climate change. But facts muddy that claim. Data show the US is among the dirtiest countries when it comes to heat-trapping carbon pollution. One nation that has cleaner air in nearly every way is Sweden. AP

SAN FRANCISCO — Threatened as it is, the Earth’s climate will survive longer than Donald Trump’s presidency, Germany’s environment minister said Friday.

The US Constitution dictates no more than two terms, federal environmental minister Barbara Hendricks noted to reporters at a San Francisco news conference alongside California Gov. Jerry Brown.

“So that’s eight years,” Hendricks said. “I think the climate is going to survive this.”

The German official’s trip to California to talk climate-efforts with Brown demonstrates determination of some US governors, some 200 US mayors, business leaders and others to keep cutting Americans’ output of climate-changing emissions from fossil fuels, Brown said.

That is despite Trump’s announcement last week that he would pull the country out of the 2015 Paris global accord. Germany and almost all the world’s other governments are still in the accord, which pledges them to curbing emissions from gasoline-powered engines and other sources of carbon.

Trump’s declaration last week prompted a series of corresponding announcements of new climate alliances and efforts nationally by state leaders and others determined to keep up US efforts overall against climate change.

Brown, one of the United States’ highest-profile campaigners to cut carbon emissions, spoke a day after returning from a week of climate-change events in China.

“The United States by withdrawing under Trump has taken a back seat” on fighting climate change, Brown said.

“But that’s temporary,” the California governor said. “This current decision will not stand.” KS