Last year 195 nations signed an agreement that has the potential to change the world’s direction on climate change. As part of the historic Paris Accord, these countries banded together to support serious climate action and commit to keeping global temperatures from rising more than two degrees celsius. Today’s announcement from President Trump that the United States will not honor the agreement is a huge disappointment. Addressing rising temperatures is vital to ensuring the continued health and prosperity of populations across the globe.

At Uber, we also believe that fighting climate change opens up new opportunities for American innovation and ingenuity to tackle the world’s biggest problems.

One of the critical pathways to reducing global carbon emissions runs through transportation, a challenge we work on every day. In recent years, transportation has been one of the fastest growing sources of emissions — but ridesharing platforms can help.

Experts have described the benefits of a world where shared services like Uber become dominant, replacing today’s reliance on individually-operated vehicles. As more of our travel shifts into shared cars, the ability to rapidly convert the fleet to higher efficiency and electric vehicles accelerates. This trend is reinforced by a move towards autonomous vehicles that can operate more efficiently than any car on the road today.

As others have convincingly argued, these three trends (sharing, automation, and electrification) are the clearest path to rapid decarbonization of the transportation system. But they are far from inevitable and much work remains to steer us down that path. As a result, we believe ridesharing has the unique potential to help catalyze long-term reductions in the climate impacts of transportation.

Uber is committed to working alongside partners in the public sector, nonprofits, and other companies who share our commitment. Time is short and continued American leadership — both from the private and public sectors — on the climate issue is the only way we will secure the future of our planet.

Uber will continue to do our part and we implore the President of the United States to not work against us, but rather join us. Let’s drive change.