Surrounded by coal miners, President Trump signed an executive order Tuesday to dismantle a slew of climate rules established by President Obama. If carried out, the executive order will virtually guarantee the United States will fail to meet its 2015 Paris Agreement pledge to reduce emissions in order to curb the effects of climate change. The executive order marks the first step to undo Obama’s Clean Power Plan to limit plant emissions and replace coal-fired power plants with new solar and wind farms. The Clean Power Plan is considered to be a critical element of the U.S.’s plan to meet the targets established in the Paris accord. Environmental and civil rights groups have vowed to fight the executive order.
On Tuesday afternoon, protesters gathered in the freezing rain outside Trump Tower in Manhattan to denounce the executive order. Other demonstrators gathered outside the EPA’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., with a sign reading “Get this toxic dump out of the White House.” We’ll have more on Trump’s executive order later in the broadcast.