Several of the biggest names in the U.S. Tech industry have signed on to a new campaign pledging their support for the Paris climate agreement a week after President Donald Trump exited the historic environmental accord.
Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Tesla, Lyft, and Uber are among the U.S. Companies that have added their names to the “We Are Still In” campaign that debuted on Monday in an effort to bring the country’s business communities together with various state and local lawmakers to continue working to reduce the U.S.’s carbon emissions.
“In the absence of leadership from Washington, states, cities, colleges and universities and businesses representing a [sizable] percentage of the U.S. Economy will pursue ambitious climate goals, working together to take forceful action and to ensure that the U.S. Remains a global leader in reducing emissions,” reads a statement from the “We Are Still In” campaign’s website.
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Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a primary organizer of the campaign, submitted a statement, called “America’s Pledge,” on behalf of the more than 1,000 U.S. Governors, mayors, investors, universities, and companies signed on to the coalition to the United Nations on Monday. The pledge includes a promise to seek the same emission reductions originally promised by the U.S. When President Barack Obama signed onto the Paris climate agreement in 2015. Bloomberg himself pledged $15 million to the U.N. Last week to help offset the U.S. Exit from the Paris climate agreement.
In addition to other tech giants such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, and Microsoft, the long list of corporations attached to the new campaign also includes Bloomberg, Campbell Soup, Gap, Levi Strauss, and Under Armour. The campaign also includes dozens of presidents of U.S. Colleges and universities, as well as the mayors of major U.S. Cities such as Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York City, and Boston. Also included are the eight states that have pledged to uphold their commitments to the Paris climate agreement: California, Connecticut, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, and Hawaii.
A note at the bottom of the campaign’s website claims that the group’s organizers include billionaire-backed non-profits such as Bloomberg Philanthropies and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson’s The B Team. Other organizers include the Sierra Club, the World Wildlife Fund, the Rocky Mountain Institute, the Georgetown Climate Center, and the liberal think tank the Center for American Progress.
A number of political and business leaders rejected President Trump’s decision to pull the United States from the Paris climate agreement last week in a decision that placed the U.S. Alongside only two other nations (Nicaragua and Syria) in the world that are not signed on to an accord that aims to reduce global emissions and hold the average global temperature increase to below 2˚C.
Tesla’s Elon Musk and Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger bothannounced that they would leave the president’s advisory council in the wake of Trump’s climate decision. And, executives ranging from ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods to Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein voiced opposition to Trump decision, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the move to withdraw from the agreement “is bad for the environment, bad for the economy, and it puts our children’s future at risk.”