‘Don’t worry, be happy,’ Putin says of U.S. decision
WASHINGTON, D.C. — While other world leaders have strongly condemned U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the Paris climate accord, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he would not judge.
“Don’t worry, be happy,” Putin quipped after being asked for his reaction at an economic forum in St. Petersburg.
Putin said the climate deal doesn’t formally go into effect until 2021, giving nations years to come up with a constructive solution to combating global warming.
For Putin, leader of the world’s biggest crude oil producer and fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, there was plenty to cheer in Trump’s rejection of the agreement painstakingly negotiated by the Obama administration and signed by 195 countries.
Trump’s move drives another wedge between the United States and its traditional European allies, while aligning its stance closer to Russia in boosting fossil fuels while deferring action to curb climate change.
While Putin’s government signed the 2015 Paris accord, he has delayed formally ratifying the agreement for at least two more years. Russia’s voluntary reduction goals under the deal are among the weakest submitted by any country, potentially allowing it to spew more planet-warming emissions in future years, not less.
While Trump has claimed that evidence of global warming is partly an elaborate hoax, Putin agrees with the overwhelming consensus of scientists that climate change is being driven by man-made carbon emissions.
“Pressure on the ecosystem is increasing and — as a result of human action and as a result of natural processes — these questions require deep study, research and analysis,” Putin said Friday. “It is clear that when working out our politics, our inclusive line of action, we must be responsible and effective.”
Still, Putin lamented that it was still so chilly and rainy in Russia, joking that future responsibility for the effects of global warming could be pinned on Trump.
“Now we can blame it all on him and American imperialism,” Putin said, laughing. “It’s all their fault.”
Putin ridiculed the allegations of Russian meddling in U.S. elections, accusing the Democrats of trying to shift blame for their defeat and likening the accusations against Russia to anti-Semitism.
Facing questions from NBC’s Megyn Kelly, who moderated Friday’s panel discussion at the forum, Putin said the claims of Russian interference in the U.S. election contained “nothing concrete, only assumptions.”
Asked about the “fingerprints” — IP addresses allegedly belonging to Russian hackers — he said those could have been easily rigged and couldn’t stand as credible evidence. “What fingerprints?” Putin said. “Hoof prints? Horn prints? Technology experts can invent anything and put the blame on anyone.”
U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Russia of hacking into Democratic Party emails, helping Donald Trump’s election victory, and the congressional and FBI investigations into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia have broken the Kremlin’s hopes for a detente with Washington.
Putin insisted that Syrian President Bashar Assad didn’t use chemical weapons against his people, saying the recent attack in northern Syria that killed at least 90 people, including many children, was a “provocation” against Assad.
Putin made one of his strongest rejections of blaming Assad’s forces for the chemical attack in April. The attack was followed by an unprecedented U.S. strike on a Syrian air base from which aircraft suspected of being involved in the chemical raid took off.
“We are absolutely convinced that it was a provocation. Assad didn’t use the weapons,” Putin said.
“It was done by people who wanted to blame him for that.”