Americans oppose President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord by a margin of 59 percent to 28 percent, a 2-to-1 margin, according to a recent poll.
The ABC News/Washington Post poll found that Americans believe the decision to withdraw from the international agreement, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, will weaken the United States’ leadership in the world and reject the idea that the decision will actually boost the economy, as Trump claims.
The results of the poll were mostly along party lines as 82 percent of Democrats opposed the decision compared to 25 percent of Republicans. According to the poll, 63 percent of independents also opposed withdrawing from the accord.
More than half of people polled also did not agree with Trump’s decisions to back out of the agreement. According to the poll, 55 percent of people thought the decision would hurt U.S. leadership and 51 percent thought it would hurt international efforts to address climate change. As for the economy, 42 percent of people thought pulling out of the accord would harm the country’s economy and 47 percent of people thought the decision will cost more jobs than it will create.
Trump’s decision was criticized by a number of world leaders and climate scientists.