Climate accord divides Trump advisers

WASHINGTON — A highstakes tussle over whether the U.S. should adhere to an international climate pact is causing divisions not only in President Trump’s White House, but also among business groups as a deadline to make a decision looms.

A meeting of White House aides — scheduled for yesterday and intended to hash out differences over whether to pull out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, stay in it or change the U.S.’s commitment — was postponed. In that nonbinding accord, hailed by President Obama at the time, countries including the United States set benchmarks to reduce carbon emissions.

A White House spokeswoman attributed the cancellation of the meeting to a scheduling conflict. White House spokesman Sean Spicer has said a decision will be made before an international summit scheduled for next month.

But the meeting’s postponement comes amid reports of clashes over the climate pact between Trump’s closest aides, Steve Bannon, who wants to pull out of the accord, and Jared Kushner, who favors staying in.

“I think even if they had held the meeting they may not have come to an agreement,” said Stephen D. Eule, vice president for climate and technology at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Energy Institute.

Eule said the chamber has not taken a position on the Paris accord in part because of differing views among its membership companies, but added that he believed the goal the Obama administration pledged, to reduce greenhouse emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025, is unrealistic. But, he said, figuring out what to do instead is far more complicated.

“I don’t think this is going to be something that will be settled in one meeting,” Eule said.

Publicly, other Trump administration officials are at odds over the agreement. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson expressed support for the U.S. remaining in the deal, while last week EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a Fox News interview that the accord is “a bad deal for America.”

Trump meanwhile has walked back his pledge to scrap the accord.

Sue Reid, vice president of climate and energy programs at Ceres, a Bostonbased sustainability advocacy organization, said many of the companies and investors her group advises want to stick with the accord, especially given international advancements in clean energy technology.

She said, “a lot of our companies and investors, they transcend national boundaries, and they see the rest of the world going this direction.”