Donald Trump now says he has an “open mind” about the Paris Agreement, an international deal to curb greenhouse-gas emissions that was signed by more than 190 countries, including the U.S. During his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly pledged to cancel U.S. involvement in the agreement, calling climate change a hoax. But at an on-the-record lunch hosted by The New York Times, he said about the deal, “I’m looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it.”
At the same meeting, Trump was questioned over the link between human activity and global warming. According to The Guardian, he answered, “I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much,” and added that he was thinking about how the issue “will cost our companies.”
“In Trump’s recent pronouncements on his first 100 days in power he has pledged to cancel money for climate change programs and lift restrictions upon fossil fuel exploration on public land, but made no mention of quitting the Paris deal,” says The Guardian.
Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said of Trump’s latest statements on the environment: “Talk is cheap, and no one should believe Donald Trump means this until he acts upon it. We’re waiting for action, and Trump is kidding nobody on climate as he simultaneously stacks his transition team and cabinet with climate science deniers and the dirtiest hacks the fossil fuel industry can offer. Prove it, president-elect. The world is watching.”