BackDonald Trump hints he will be open to remaining in Paris climate pact
Donald Trump says he'd be open to keeping the US in the Paris climate agreement, but he casts doubt on the science of climate change
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Washington: President Donald Trump said he’d be open to keeping the US in the Paris climate accord, partly because of his warm relationship with French president Emmanuel Macron—but also cast doubt on the science of climate change.
Trump pledged in June that he was pulling the US out of the Paris climate agreement, signed in 2015 by almost 200 countries after years of negotiations. He continues to call it a bad deal for the US.
“The Paris accord, for us, would have been a disaster," Trump said in excerpts of an interview with Piers Morgan on the UK television network ITV that will be broadcast later on Sunday. “Would I go back in? Yeah, I’d go back in. I like, as you know, I like Emmanuel" Macron.
“I would love to, but it’s got to be a good deal for the United States," Trump added. The comments were similar to ones he made 10 January, after a meeting with Norway’s prime minister Erna Solberg at the White House.
“We can conceivably go back in," Trump said at the time. Countries can’t formally submit paperwork to leave the Paris climate agreement until 2019, with their exits effective no earlier than 4 November 2020—a day after the next US presidential election.
‘Bundle up!’
Trump also expressed skepticism in the ITV interview that the global climate is warming, as a majority of scientists have concluded.
“There is a cooling, and there’s a heating," he said. “I mean, look, it used to not be climate change, it used to be global warming. That wasn’t working too well because it was getting too cold all over the place. The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records."
Trump’s comment was consistent with one he made on Twitter in late December as the eastern US shivered through a brief cold snap. “Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!"
In 2014, two years before he was elected president, Trump said on Twitter that the “POLAR ICE CAPS are at an all time high, the POLAR BEAR population has never been stronger. Where the hell is global warming."
Data released this month from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show 2017 was the third hottest year on record. Seven of the 18 hottest years have been logged in the 21st century, according to NOAA.
The cost of natural disasters hit records in the US in 2017, straining the US budget. NOAA tallied 16 major billion-dollar-plus storms, fires and floods in 2017, including Hurricanes Maria and Harvey, which devastated Puerto Rico and Houston, respectively. The price-tag for damage from those weather and climate events was $306 billion. Bloomberg
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