Philly tech ain’t having none of that talk of withdrawing from the Paris Accord

Yesterday at 3 p.m., it seemed like the world stopped to check Twitter and see if the reports were true. Would he do it? Could he? And he did.

President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. was withdrawing from the Paris Accord, a proposal to lower carbon emissions backed by 195 countries in April last year. The reaction from top tech execs like GE CEO Jeff Immelt and Tesla CEO Elon Musk was pretty much unanimous: it was a bad decision.

In our local tech ecosystem, some founders and companies also chimed in to voice their concern with the move.

Unsurprisingly frazzled by the decision was Inspire, the renewable energy company with offices in Santa Monica, Calif., and Center City.

We are deeply disappointed in the #ParisAgreement decision to exit. We remain committed to our mission: creating a cleaner, brighter future.

— Inspire Clean Energy (@inspire_energy) June 1, 2017

CTO Michael Durst told Technical.ly that the news were a major disappointment, given the company’s mission to increase the use of renewable energy sources.

“However, we’re in this for the long fight,” Durst said. “We feel more emboldened than ever that what we’re doing is even more important today than it was before this decision. Our members joined Inspire because they want a cleaner, brighter energy future and that’s what we’re building. Disappointed?…yes, but we all got here a little earlier than normal today, we’ll roll up our sleeves and we’ll rally around our mission.”

ImmERge Labs cofounder Marion Leary, who has been an active supporter of causes like the Science March, also shared some thoughts on the decision:

What is happening right now is literally the result of electing a reality TV personality as @POTUS. #ParisAgreement

— Marion Leary, PhD, MPH, RN (she/they) 🏳️‍🌈 (@marionleary) June 1, 2017

Pennovation’s Laurie Actman said the call to withdraw was “tragic” for the country and backed Musk’s decision to withdraw from Trump’s advisory council.

Do it! This is beyond tragic for our country–Elon Musk threatens to leave White House councils over Paris deal https://t.co/bUkM4ncCid

— Laurie Actman (@PhilaEnergyGal) May 31, 2017

Microsoft’s Philly-based director of modern government, Jeff Friedman, went on a retweeting spree of the scathing reactions to Trump’s decision, not before blasting off with his own rejection of the call:

https://twitter.com/Jeff_A_Friedman/status/870364370932555776

Similar to the mayors of Chicago and Pittsburgh, Philly mayor Jim Kenney said that the agreement will be upheld at a local level despite the withdrawal.

Philly is committed to upholding at local level the same commitment made by the US in the Paris climate agreement https://t.co/WDiVmAMr2d

— Mayor Cherelle L. Parker (@PhillyMayor) June 1, 2017

…to which Philadelphia 3.0’s Jon Geeting reacted with a characteristically wonky prompt on a local issue:

Now more than ever, it's time to eliminate minimum parking requirements for multi-family housing https://t.co/XIm5rfZlqr

— Jon Geeting (@jongeeting) June 1, 2017