Bloomberg, Modi and Macron vow to foil Trump’s climate coup
paris — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed after meeting French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday to go “above and beyond” the Paris Agreement on climate change, after the US said it would quit the deal.
Two days after US President Donald Trump sensationally announced plans to withdraw from the pact on curbing carbon emissions Modi said protecting “mother Earth” was part of Indian culture. “For Indians, environmental protection is a profession of faith because we learn it in the vedas (ancient Hindu scriptures),” he said.
Macron has led Europe’s defence of the Paris accord, endearing himself to opponents of Trump’s stance. Reacting to Trump’s announcement, Macron issued an appeal in English to “make the planet great again” — a play on Trump’s pledge to “make America great again” that has been retweeted a quarter of a million times. Trump’s decision to scrap the Paris deal has left him isolated on the world stage.
Billionaire climate advocate Michael Bloomberg made an unannounced visit to Macron in Paris on Friday to discuss bolstering the pact.
“Today I want the world to know the US will meet our Paris commitment, and through a partnership among cities, states, and businesses, we will seek to remain part of the Paris agreement process,” Bloomberg said.
Bloomberg pledged $15 million to support the agreement’s coordinating agency in the event the US refused to pay its share. —
washington — Does he or doesn’t he? Believe in climate change, that is. You’d think that would be an easy enough question the day after President Donald Trump announced he was pulling the US out of the landmark global accord aimed at combatting global warming.
But don’t bother asking at the White House.
“I have not had an opportunity to have that discussion” with the president, responded Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Friday.
“You should ask him that,” offered White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway.
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt dodged the question, too. The president also ignored it during an unrelated bill-signing.
It’s quite a reversal for Trump, who spent years publicly bashing the idea of global warming as a “hoax” and “total con job” in books, interviews and tweets. He openly challenged the scientific consensus that the climate is changing and man-made carbon emissions are largely to blame.
“Global warming is an expensive hoax!” he tweeted in 2014.
But Trump has been largely silent on the issue since his election last fall. On Thursday, he made scarce mention of it in his lengthy remarks announcing America’s exit from the Paris accord. Instead, he framed his decision as based on economics.
Here’s what he’s said before:
Trump’s tweets:
The president’s twitter feed once was filled with references to “socalled” global warming being a “total con job” based on “faulty science and manipulated data”.
An Associated Press search of his twitter archives revealed at least 90 instances in which he has referred to “global warming” and “climate change” since 2011. In nearly every instance, he expressed skepticism or mockery.
“This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bulls--- has got to stop,” he wrote in January 2014, spelling out the vulgarity.
Often the president has pointed to cold weather as evidence the climate scientists are wrong.
“It’s 46º (really cold) and snowing in New York on Memorial Day — tell the so-called “scientists” that we want global warming right now!” he wrote in May 2013 — one of several instances in which he said that warming would be welcome.
“Where the hell is global warming when you need it?” he asked in January 2015.
The same message was echoed in the president’s books.
In Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America, Trump made a reference to “the mistaken belief that global climate change is being caused by carbon emissions.”
“If you don’t buy that — and I don’t — then what we have is really just an expensive way of making the tree-huggers feel good about themselves,” he wrote.
Candidate and sceptic:
“I’m not a believer in man-made global warming,” Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in September 2015, after launching his bid for the White House. He bemoaned the fact that the US was investing money and doing things “to solve a problem that I don’t think in any major fashion exists.”
“I am not a believer,” he added, “Unless somebody can prove something to me ... I am not a believer and we have much bigger problems.”
By March 2016, the president appeared to allow that the climate was changing — but continued to doubt humans were to blame.
“I think there’s a change in weather. I am not a great believer in manmade climate change. I’m not a great believer,” he told The Washington Post. “There is certainly a change in weather,” he said.
Then-campaign manager, Conway explained Trump’s view this way: “He believes that global warming is naturally occurring. That there are shifts naturally occurring.”—
Americans will honour the Paris accord by leading from the bottom up Michael Bloomberg Climate advocate Our countries have to do a lot for the environmental transition Emmanuel Macron French President The protection of the environment and the mother planet is an article of faith Narendra Modi Indian Prime Minister