President Donald Trump has made the decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate change agreement, according to multiple reports Wednesday morning.
Axios, Politico and the Associated Press reported that anonymous sources said Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt would work out details of the withdrawal from the agreement. A formal withdrawal could take three years.
The Paris Agreement was a deal to limit greenhouse gases in order to combat climate change. It has been signed by 175 countries and took effect in November 2016.
Trump had indicated on his international trip last week that he was thinking he would honor his campaign promise to withdraw from the agreement, according to CNN. He did not sign a joint statement articulating support for the accords at the G-7 conference. Foreign allies have expressed disappointment in that action.
Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel indicated after that meeting that the U.S. was no longer a reliable partner to Germany.
“The times in which we could rely fully on others — they are somewhat over,” Merkel said on the campaign trail after a contentious NATO summit meeting in Brussels and G-7 meeting. “This is what I experienced in the last few days.”
The United States is the country with the second-highest carbon emissions in the world, only behind China. China signed the agreement.
The only other two countries in the U.N. that did not support the deal are Nicaragua and Syria.