Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Elon Musk and Walt Disney Co CEO Robert Iger said they would leave the United States President Donald Trump's advisory councils, after Trump announced withdrawal of the US from the Paris climate deal.
Trump, on Wednesday, decided to pull out of the landmark global agreement designed to fight climate change. The Paris Agreement, which was signed in 2015, involves nearly 200 countries including the US with a goal to limit global warming well below two degree Celcius above pre-industrial levels.
Trump, however, has always been critical of the global climate accord, calling global warming a hoax, and had pledged to withdraw from the deal during the presidential elections campaign last year.
"Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world," Musk said in a Twitter post. He is a member of the President's Strategic and Policy Forum, a business advisory group, and Trump's manufacturing jobs council.
The Tesla leader on Wednesday said he had done all he could to convince Trump to stay in the global deal, and had threatened to leave the advisory council if Trump chose to exit from the accord.
Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2017
The Disney leader also took to Twitter saying: "as a matter of principle, I've resigned from the President's Council over the #ParisAgreement withdrawal." He will leave the business advisory group.
Iger's message on Twitter was retweeted by Musk.
As a matter of principle, I've resigned from the President's Council over the #ParisAgreement withdrawal.
— Robert Iger (@RobertIger) June 1, 2017
Uber Technologies Inc CEO Travis Kalanick, who was also part of Trump's advisory council, had resigned from the committee in February after increasing pressure from activists and Uber's employees who opposed Trump administration's anti-immigration policies.
Before even taking office, Trump had formulated a business advisory group in December to assit him in making policy decisions. The advisory council was led by top business executives including Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of Blackstone Group LP and includes Indra Nooyi, the chief executive of PepsiCo Inc and Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co .
The decision to back out of the global climate accord will put the US in league with Syria and Nicaragua as the world's only non-participants in the Paris Agreement. The US withdrawal from the pact can have sweeping implications for the climate deal as it heavily relies on the commitment of countries which emit a lot of pollution to reduce emissions of gases which cause sea level rise, droughts and frequent storms across the world.
Under the pact, the US had committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent below its 2005 level by 2025. The US is the world's second-biggest carbon dioxide emitter behind China.
