Trump cites French protest vindicates his reason to reject climate pact

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump once again attacked the Paris agreement on fighting climate change, citing ongoing protests in the French capital as proof that he was right to reject the pact.

His tweets came in the middle of UN climate talks in Poland, where nearly 200 nations have gathered to agree on a universal rulebook to make good on promises they signed up to in the 2015 Paris climate deal to cap global warming at under 2°C.

“Very sad day; night in Paris,” he said on Twitter, after demonstrators clashed with riot police in Paris.

“Maybe it’s time to end the ridiculous and extremely expensive Paris Agreement and return money back to the people in the form of lower taxes? The US was way ahead of the curve on that and the only major country where emissions went down last year!“

Trump’s comments were not the first time he had used the “yellow vest” protests – which began on Nov 17 with road blockades against fuel prices but have since ballooned into a mass movement against French President Emmanuel Macron – to criticise the climate deal.

On Tuesday, he called the Paris agreement “fatally flawed” and said Macron’s decision to suspend the fuel tax hikes vindicated his decision to dump the climate deal.

Trump has long said he distrusts the consensus by nearly all the world’s respected climate scientists on the link between human activity and rising temperatures, as well as other damaging climate change phenomena. — AFP