RIBA president slams US withdrawal from Paris Agreement

RIBA has slammed US president Donald Trump’s decision to take the US out of the Paris climate change agreement.

President Jane Duncan said backing out of the Paris agreement represented “one of the most regressive decisions of our time”.

“To give up on tackling climate change is to give up on the prospects for future generations all around the world,” she said of the decision, announced last week

Duncan said stopping climate change could only be achieved as part of what she called “a global and committed community”.

She said: “The RIBA is determined that built environment professionals will continue to push toward agreed sustainable development goals regardless of the decision of the president of the United States of America, and we wholeheartedly back the American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) commitment to do so.”

Last week the AIA said it would urge its members around the world to continue to help meet the accord’s aims.

AIA president Thomas Vonier said that far from helping US businesses, as claimed by Trump, withdrawing from the Paris agreement would hurt American interests.

“By adhering to our values as a profession that is concerned with human habitat and the health of our environment, we will help to mitigate the harm this decision will do to our economy and to America’s stature across the globe,” he added.