What does the president-elect think about climate change?
Who even knows anymore?
Speaking at the offices of The New York Times on Tuesday, Donald J. Trump appeared to vacillate on, and sometimes even disagree with, previous statements about climate change made by Donald J. Trump. He even seemed ready to grant that climate change exists.
“I think there is some connectivity” between humans and the changing climate, he told the Times reporters and editors, according to Maggie Haberman.
Does Trump think human activity is linked to climate change? “I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much."
— Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016
"Clean air is vitally important," Trump says about climate change. Says he is keeping "an open mind."
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016
Clean air is not quite the issue with climate change—unlike airborne lead or particulate matter, carbon dioxide only threatens human health when it escapes into the atmosphere and screws up planetary weather patterns—but even the willingness to accept global warming’s existence would be a revision of Trump’s views.
He also told Tom Friedman, the Times columnist, that he was keeping “an open mind” about the Paris Agreement, the first international treaty to combat climate change.
Tom Friedman asks if Trump will withdraw from climate change accords. Trump: “I’m looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it."
— Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016
On climate change, Trump says he is also thinking about "how much it will cost our companies” & the effect on American competitiveness.
— Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016
Maybe he’s just been reading the news. More than 70 percent of Americans, and a majority of Republicans, want the United States to remain in the Paris Agreement, according to a poll from the University of Chicago. Hundreds of U.S. companies have also asked the Trump administration to stay in the treaty. They aren’t just liberal-aligned firms, either: Many of them, including Kellogg and General Mills, have given tens of thousands to Republicans in the recent past.