Nicaragua refused to sign the Paris climate agreement in 2015 because the government deemed “insufficient” the commitment of rich nations to reduce environmental pollution. On the other hand, the reasons that prompted Donald Trump to withdraw the United States from the treaty were very different.
The US president
sees the agreement as something that damages the economic interests of the United States, while the Nicaraguan government sees it from the perspective of its insufficiency,”
said the director of the envrionmentalist Humboldt Center, Víctor Campos.
Nicaragua estimates that its
carbon dioxide emissions are minimal (0.03% of global emissions) and that those that pollute the planet are the big economies like China, […] who must compensate the damage caused by global warming,”
stressed Campos.
For opposition candidate Víctor Hugo Tinoco -who was vice chancellor in the first Sandinista government- Nicaragua’s refusal to support the agreement, along with Syria’s, was a totally absurd decision, but it’s different from Trump’s economic motivations.
With the United States withdrawal from the agreement, Trump seeks to sell the idea that it will generate jobs in the coal area, something some experts believe would be like going back to the steam locomotive era, said Tinoco.
The government of Managua did not comment on Trump’s announcement, but published newspaper articles on its website to oppose the treaty.