WASHINGTON (Reuters) - David Rank, the chargé d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, has left the State Department over the Trump administration’s decision to quit the 2015 Paris agreement to fight climate change, a senior U.S. official said on Monday.

An official of China's Giant Panda Protection and Research Center introduces Dujiangyan Panda Base to David Rank (C), the charge d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, in Sichuan province, China March 24, 2017. Picture taken March 24, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

A State Department spokeswoman confirmed Rank’s departure, but said she was unable to verify Twitter posts that said he resigned as he felt unable to deliver a formal notification to China of the U.S. decision last week to quit the agreement.

“He has retired from the foreign service,” said Anna Richey-Allen, a spokeswoman for the department’s East Asia Bureau. “Mr. Rank has made a personal decision. We appreciate his years of dedicated service to the State Department.”

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, President Donald Trump’s pick as the next U.S. ambassador to Beijing, is expected to take up the post later this month.

A tweet from China expert John Pomfret quoted unnamed sources as saying that Rank had resigned as he could not support Trump’s decision last week to withdraw from the Paris agreement.

Another tweet from Pomfret said Rank called a town hall meeting to announce his decision to embassy staff and explained that he could not deliver a diplomatic note informing the Chinese government of the U.S. decision.

A senior U.S. official confirmed the account given in the tweets but added that after Rank announced his intention to retire on Monday in Beijing, he was told by the State Department to leave his post immediately. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

On June 1, the U.S. State Department accepted the resignation of its top personnel officer, who had been among its few remaining senior Obama administration political appointees, another U.S. official said.

Arnold Chacon had served as the director general of the foreign service and director of human resources.

The official said Chacon had tendered his resignation when Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, along with all presidential appointees, who serve at the pleasure of the president and secretary of state.

The acceptance of Chacon’s resignation was first reported by the DiploPundit website.

It was not immediately clear whether he would be offered another post at the department.

Other than Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, his deputy John Sullivan and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Tom Shannon, the third-ranking U.S. diplomat, most of the State Department’s senior posts are currently vacant or filled by acting officials.

Chacon could not immediately be reached for comment.

Contacted by Reuters for comment, Rank, a career foreign service officer who took over the post of deputy chief of mission in Beijing in January 2016, referred all questions to the U.S. embassy.

Jonathan Fritz, the embassy’s economics councilor, would serve as chargé in his place, Richey-Allen said.

FILE PHOTO: A paramilitary police officer guards the entrance to the U.S. embassy in Beijing April 30, 2012. REUTERS/Petar Kujundzic/File Photo

Rank had been with the department for 27 years and served as the political councilor at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012.

Trump’s announcement on Thursday that he would withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, saying it would undermine the U.S. economy and cost jobs, drew anger and condemnation from world leaders and heads of industry.

“The world has paid attention to the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement”, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news briefing on Tuesday, but added that personnel changes were the United States’ “internal affairs”. </s> David Rank, the acting US ambassador to China, resigned from his post in Beijing over President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, according to sources cited in multiple reports.

This story is developing and will continue to be updated. </s> U.S. President Donald Trump interacts with reporters as he welcomes Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S. May 31, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst | Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement, striking a major blow to worldwide efforts to combat climate change and distancing the country from many allies abroad. He said the U.S. would try to negotiate re-entry on better terms.

"As of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the nonbinding Paris accord," Trump said during a White House Rose Garden announcement. Suggesting renegotiating re-entry was not a major priority, he said, "If we can, great. If we can't, that's fine."

By abandoning the world's chief effort to slow the tide of planetary warming, Trump was fulfilling a top campaign pledge. But he was also breaking from many of America's staunches allies, who have expressed alarm about the decision.

Under former President Barack Obama, the U.S. had agreed to reduce emissions to 26 per cent to 28 per cent of 2005 levels by 2025 — about 1.6 billion tons.

But Trump said the agreement disadvantaged the U.S. "to the exclusive benefit of other countries," leaving American businesses and taxpayers to absorb the cost.

Scientists say Earth is likely to reach more dangerous levels of warming sooner as a result of the president's decision because America contributes so much to rising temperatures. Calculations suggest withdrawal could result in emissions of up to 3 billion tons of additional carbon dioxide in the air a year — enough to melt ice sheets faster, raise seas higher and trigger more extreme weather.

The U.S. is the world's second-largest emitter of carbon, following only China. Beijing, however, has reaffirmed its commitment to meeting its targets under the Paris accord, recently cancelling construction of about 100 coal-fired power plants and investing billions in massive wind and solar projects.

White House talking points obtained by The Associated Press said the Paris accord was "a BAD deal for Americans" and that the president's action would keep "his campaign promise to put American workers first."

"The Accord," the document went on to say, "was negotiated poorly by the Obama Administration and signed out of desperation."

"The U.S. is already leading the world in energy production and doesn't need a bad deal that will harm American workers," it read.

The White House had signalled earlier in the week that withdrawal was likely, but Trump has been known to change his mind at the last minute on such major decisions.

White House aides were divided on the topic and had been deliberating on "caveats in the language" as late as Wednesday, one official said. </s> Not long after President Donald Trump announced today that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, Mayor Jim Kenney announced that Philly will continue to honor the historic agreement to lessen the country’s carbon footprint in an attempt to fight the global effects of climate change. They say that climate changes are natural, and they say that the Paris accord will slow economic growth and cause higher energy costs.

“At what point does America get demeaned?” he continued.

“Industry must now lead and not depend on government”, wrote Jeff Immelt, CEO of General electric, according to Fortune. Resistance to Trump’s move quickly bubbled up in statehouses, city halls, corporate boardrooms and homes across America.

Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists called Trump’s move “reprehensible”. Mayors of more than 85 cities across the U.S. signed a letter on Thursday announcing a commitment to reduce emissions and push clean energy.

The National Climate Change Secretariat said on Friday that Singapore will continue contributing to the global effort to address climate change.

President Donald Trump announced his intention for the United States to leave the Paris climate agreement on Thursday in a lengthy and rambling speech that veered into inaccurate territory several times. “We’re going to grow rapidly”, he said.

“The agreement is a massive redistribution of United States’ wealth to other countries”, Trump said. “You won the election with a manufacturing jobs agenda”.

Without mentioning the USA specifically, Li said that “China in recent years has stayed true to its commitment” and pointed out that his was one of the first countries to ratify the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Mr Trump said though that he was open to renegotiating the deal, or creating a new agreement, “on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers”.

In a memo to Apple employees Thursday afternoon, Cook expressed his disappointment with Trump’s decision to pull out of the global agreement. The accord calls for countries to revisit their individual pledges every five years, with the hope that nations will adopt stricter limits as the price of cleaner energy technology drops.

Trump’s claim that the Paris accord would achieve “tiny, tiny” temperature reductions was attributed to MIT.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Britain would continue to press the U.S.to reduce unsafe emissions even if Trump pulls out.

China overtook the United States as the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in 2007 but analysts see the USA withdrawal as an opportunity for China to burnish its image as a global leader. </s> President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday evening that he will announce his decision on whether the United States should leave the 2016 Paris Accord Thursday at the White House.

Trump will announce his decision on the Paris Agreement in the next few days.

Trump, who has called global warming a “hoax”, promised during his presidential campaign to pull the US out of the deal.

What’s not quite clear yet is whether Trump intends to pull out of the Paris agreement itself, or the entire treaty underlining all global climate change negotiations, called the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

More on this as it develops.

China says it will work with the European Union to uphold the worldwide agreement on climate change even if the US pulls out.

Last week, more than 20 Republican senators, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, sent a letter to Trump asking him to leave the Paris Climate Agreement.

Hundreds of United States companies, including Nike, Starbucks and Mars, also signed a joint letter warning Mr Trump a withdrawal would threaten “American prosperity”.

She’s criticizing what she says are “destructive and short-sighted” decisions by the Trump administration. The deal relies heavily on reductions in emissions by big polluter nations, and the United States is the world’s second-biggest carbon dioxide emitter behind China. While a shift of focus back onto fossil fuels will undoubtedly provide jobs growth in the short-term, whether the president believes in climate change or not, the future of energy is in renewables.

Some northern European countries are criticizing the USA for its expected withdrawal from the Paris climate accords.

In Denmark, climate minister Lars Christian Lilleholt said that “if true, this is a really, really bad signal from the United States”.

The European Union and China spell out their continued commitment to the deal in a draft joint statement, obtained by CNN, which is slated to be published Friday regardless of what Trump announces.

Musk indicated that he had been trying to persuade Trump to remain part of the climate agreement.

Under Obama, Washington had pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. The organization’s main Twitter page quoted Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as saying, “Climate change is undeniable”.

A frustrated German Chancellor Angela Merkel later warned that Europe “must take its fate into its own hands”, citing the differences with Washington on climate change as evidence of their divergent paths. Tesla’s Elon Musk threatened to quit White House advisory councils if the president pulls out. His agency was responsible for numerous multilateral issues, including climate change and ozone depletion. The U.S., he said, is “well positioned to compete” with the agreement in place and staying in means “a seat at the negotiating table to ensure a level playing field”.

A spokesman for the American Petroleum Industry, which represents US oil and gas companies, said it had no position on the Paris agreement, but pointed out recent declines in USA carbon emissions to near 30-year lows – a trend driven by increased natural gas use replacing coal. </s> WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump was set to unveil his decision on the Paris climate accord Thursday in dramatic fashion, teasing an afternoon Rose Garden statement while revealing little about his final thinking.

White House officials say it’s likely Trump will announce a withdrawal from the landmark climate accord during the 3 p.m. ET event, but concede there’s little certainty when it comes to predicting Trump’s behavior.

The President campaigned against the climate agreement as a candidate, and those close to him suggest he’s ready to fulfill those promises to remove the US from the 195-country deal. The move would isolate the United States in a global effort to curb the warming of the planet, and leave an opening for countries like China to fill the leadership void.

Pressure to remain in the Paris accord has been intense, however, and no official discounted the possibility of Trump changing his mind at the last minute.

The lingering uncertainty has lent the Paris announcement a reality show-like air, with Thursday’s unveiling a finale to a months-long debate that has split members of the President’s inner circle and led to deep consternation from global allies.

Trump, a former reality star himself, advertised the announcement in a tweet late Wednesday. Earlier in the day, he told reporters he was “hearing from a lot of people both ways.”

On Thursday morning, senior administration officials said they still believed Trump planned to announce a withdrawal from the accord but would not reveal the precise mechanism the US would utilize to execute the decision.

Trump would have several options, including triggering a years-long withdrawal process or taking the more drastic step of removing the US from the United Nations climate treaty. He could also declare the Paris agreement a treaty that requires Senate approval, which isn’t likely to come from the Republican-controlled body.

Lawyers and other administration aides have planned a withdrawal announcement, but recognize Trump has changed his mind at the last minute previously on important decisions where outside forces are pressuring him to moderate his position.

As news emerged Wednesday that Trump planned to quit the Paris deal, business leaders and foreign heads-of-state began castigating the decision as a woeful abandonment of US leadership. Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, said he would resign from White House business councils if Trump followed through. Apple CEO Tim Cook also urged Trump to reconsider.

Inside the West Wing, attempts to sway Trump’s thinking also continued apace. Trump’s daughter and senior adviser, Ivanka, has worked to ensure her father heard pro-Paris voices over the last several months, and has continued to press for a decision short of a full withdrawal.

Ivanka Trump and her allies, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Trump’s chief economist Gary Cohn, have pressed Trump to alter the US commitments to the Paris agreement without fully pulling out of the accord.

But anti-Paris voices, led by chief strategist Steve Bannon and EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, have appeared to won out. In conversations with his advisers, Trump has cited the affect a withdrawal would have on the states where he won by the largest margins, including in the Rust Belt and the western plains.

That’s a reflection of Trump’s “America First” governing policy, which he’s sought to bolster since taking office. Trump was pressured heavily by his foreign counterparts during last week’s G7 meetings in Sicily to remain in the deal, but his advisers say he felt little obligation to concede to that point of view.

On Wednesday, global figures began reiterating their own commitment to the Paris deal as Trump prepared to withdraw. Chinese premier Li Keqiang, visiting Germany, said his country would remain committed to combating climate change, despite US moves.

And European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker declared Europe was ready to act as a global climate leader in the US absence.

“The vacuum that would be created has to be filled, and Europe has aspirations for a natural leadership in this whole process,” he said in Berlin. </s> WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump was set to unveil his decision on the Paris climate accord Thursday in dramatic fashion, teasing an afternoon Rose Garden statement while revealing little about his final thinking.

White House officials say it’s likely Trump will announce a withdrawal from the landmark climate accord during the 3 p.m. ET event, but concede there’s little certainty when it comes to predicting Trump’s behavior.

The President campaigned against the climate agreement as a candidate, and those close to him suggest he’s ready to fulfill those promises to remove the US from the 195-country deal. The move would isolate the United States in a global effort to curb the warming of the planet, and leave an opening for countries like China to fill the leadership void.

Pressure to remain in the Paris accord has been intense, however, and no official discounted the possibility of Trump changing his mind at the last minute.

The lingering uncertainty has lent the Paris announcement a reality show-like air, with Thursday’s unveiling a finale to a months-long debate that has split members of the President’s inner circle and led to deep consternation from global allies.

Trump, a former reality star himself, advertised the announcement in a tweet late Wednesday. Earlier in the day, he told reporters he was “hearing from a lot of people both ways.”

On Thursday morning, senior administration officials said they still believed Trump planned to announce a withdrawal from the accord but would not reveal the precise mechanism the US would utilize to execute the decision.

Trump would have several options, including triggering a years-long withdrawal process or taking the more drastic step of removing the US from the United Nations climate treaty. He could also declare the Paris agreement a treaty that requires Senate approval, which isn’t likely to come from the Republican-controlled body.

Lawyers and other administration aides have planned a withdrawal announcement, but recognize Trump has changed his mind at the last minute previously on important decisions where outside forces are pressuring him to moderate his position.

As news emerged Wednesday that Trump planned to quit the Paris deal, business leaders and foreign heads-of-state began castigating the decision as a woeful abandonment of US leadership. Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, said he would resign from White House business councils if Trump followed through. Apple CEO Tim Cook also urged Trump to reconsider.

Inside the West Wing, attempts to sway Trump’s thinking also continued apace. Trump’s daughter and senior adviser, Ivanka, has worked to ensure her father heard pro-Paris voices over the last several months, and has continued to press for a decision short of a full withdrawal.

Ivanka Trump and her allies, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Trump’s chief economist Gary Cohn, have pressed Trump to alter the US commitments to the Paris agreement without fully pulling out of the accord.

But anti-Paris voices, led by chief strategist Steve Bannon and EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, have appeared to won out. In conversations with his advisers, Trump has cited the affect a withdrawal would have on the states where he won by the largest margins, including in the Rust Belt and the western plains.

That’s a reflection of Trump’s “America First” governing policy, which he’s sought to bolster since taking office. Trump was pressured heavily by his foreign counterparts during last week’s G7 meetings in Sicily to remain in the deal, but his advisers say he felt little obligation to concede to that point of view.

On Wednesday, global figures began reiterating their own commitment to the Paris deal as Trump prepared to withdraw. Chinese premier Li Keqiang, visiting Germany, said his country would remain committed to combating climate change, despite US moves.

And European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker declared Europe was ready to act as a global climate leader in the US absence.

“The vacuum that would be created has to be filled, and Europe has aspirations for a natural leadership in this whole process,” he said in Berlin. </s> WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will announce his decision on whether to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord during a Rose Garden event Thursday afternoon.

Trump promoted his announcement Wednesday night on Twitter, after a day in which U.S. allies around the world sounded alarms about the likely consequences of a U.S. withdrawal. Trump himself kept everyone in suspense, saying he was still listening to “a lot of people both ways.”

The White House signaled that Trump was likely to decide on exiting the global pact — fulfilling one of his principal campaign pledges — though top aides were divided. And the final decision may not be entirely clear-cut: Aides were still deliberating on “caveats in the language,” one official said.

Everyone cautioned that no decision was final until Trump announced it. The president has been known to change his thinking on major decisions and tends to seek counsel from both inside and outside advisers, many with differing agendas, until the last minute.

Abandoning the pact would isolate the U.S. from a raft of international allies who spent years negotiating the 2015 agreement to fight global warming and pollution by reducing carbon emissions in nearly 200 nations. While traveling abroad last week, Trump was repeatedly pressed to stay in the deal by European leaders and the Vatican. Withdrawing would leave the United States aligned only with Russia among the world’s industrialized economies.

American corporate leaders have also appealed to the businessman-turned-president to stay. They include Apple, Google and Walmart. Even fossil fuel companies such as Exxon Mobil, BP and Shell say the United States should abide by the deal.

In a Berlin speech, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said that fighting climate change is a “global consensus” and an “international responsibility.”

“China in recent years has stayed true to its commitment,” said Li, speaking in Berlin Wednesday.

Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama, enacted the deal without U.S. Senate ratification. A formal withdrawal would take years, experts say, a situation that led the president of the European Commission to speak dismissively of Trump on Wednesday.

Trump doesn’t “comprehensively understand” the terms of the accord, though European leaders tried to explain the process for withdrawing to him “in clear, simple sentences” during summit meetings last week, Jean-Claude Juncker said in Berlin. “It looks like that attempt failed,” Juncker said. “This notion, ‘I am Trump, I am American, America first and I am getting out,’ that is not going to happen.”

Some of Trump’s aides have been searching for a middle ground — perhaps by renegotiating the terms of the agreement — in an effort to thread the needle between his base of supporters who oppose the deal and those warning that a U.S. exit would deal a blow to the fight against global warming as well as to worldwide U.S. leadership.

That fight has played out within Trump’s administration.

Trump met Wednesday with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has favored remaining in the agreement. Chief strategist Steve Bannon supports an exit, as does Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt.

Trump’s chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, has discussed the possibility of changing the U.S. carbon reduction targets instead of pulling out of the deal completely. Senior adviser Jared Kushner generally thinks the deal is bad but still would like to see if emissions targets can be changed.

Trump’s influential daughter Ivanka Trump’s preference is to stay, but she has made it a priority to establish a review process so her father would hear from all sides, said a senior administration official. Like the other officials, that person was not authorized to describe the private discussions by name and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Wednesday in Alaska that he had “yet to read what the actual Paris Agreement is,” and would have to read it before weighing in.

Scientists say Earth is likely to reach more dangerous levels of warming sooner if the U.S. retreats from its pledge because America contributes so much to rising temperatures. Calculations suggest withdrawal could result in emissions of up to 3 billion tons of additional carbon dioxide in the air a year — enough to melt ice sheets faster, raise seas higher and trigger more extreme weather.

Associated Press writers Catherine Lucy, Michael Biesecker and Seth Borenstein in Washington and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report. </s> BRUSSELS (AP) — Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and top officials from the European Union were set Friday to reaffirm their commitment to a landmark climate change agreement, a day after President Donald Trump said he was pulling the United States out of the Paris accord.

Climate issues were expected to dominate discussions between Li, who is leading a large delegation of ministers to Brussels, and EU Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Speaking to European business leaders alongside Li, Juncker said EU-China ties are underpinned by “a rules-based international system.”

Brussels and Beijing believe in “the full implementation, without nuances, of the Paris climate agreement,” Juncker said, and underlined that there can be “no backsliding” on the pact.

In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted that the U.S. withdrawal won’t prevent the rest of the world from pressing ahead with efforts to curb global warming.

“Nothing can and will stop us from doing so,” she said in a brief statement to reporters.

Merkel, whose country hosts this year’s international climate summit, said Trump’s decision was “extremely regrettable and that’s putting it very mildly.”

“It’s now necessary to look forward after last night’s announcement by the U.S. administration,” she said, adding that Europe’s biggest economy will continue to meet its obligations under the 2015 Paris accord.

At their short summit, the EU and China — two of the world’s major polluters — are set to reaffirm their stance on global warming.

According to a draft, they will express their determination “to forge ahead with further policies and measures for effective implementation of their respective nationally determined contributions.”

European heavyweights France, Germany and Italy said in a joint statement on Thursday that they regretted Trump’s decision to withdraw from the accord, while affirming their “strongest commitment” to implement its measures.

While Trump said the United States would be willing to rejoin the accord if it could obtain more favorable terms, the three European leaders said the agreement cannot be renegotiated, “since it is a vital instrument for our planet, societies and economics.”

Germany’s environment minister underscored that Friday, saying “there will be no new deal with the United States” on climate change.

Barbara Hendricks told reporters in Berlin that other countries will fill the leadership vacuum left by the United States but none will be expected to make up the shortfall in emissions reductions caused by Washington’s exit.

She added that the global climate would “survive” Trump’s maximum presidential term of eight years.

Hendricks said the absence of $500 million contributions from the United States to the Green Climate Fund will be felt from 2018, but said it might be possible to fill the gap with “other financing mechanisms, for example through the World Bank.”
The chargé d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, China, resigns following President Donald Trump's announcement he will withdraw the United States from the 2015 international Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation.