EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Says Paris Climate Agreement 'A Bad Deal'
- 7 years ago
The head of the EPA, or Environmental Protection Agency, has dismissed the Paris agreement on climate change as “a bad deal.”
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has dismissed the Paris climate agreement as “a bad deal.”
During an appearance on ABC News’ “This Week” Sunday, Scott Pruitt criticized the accord by saying, “What was wrong with Paris was not just that it was, you know, failed to be treated as a treaty, but China and India...the largest producers of CO2 internationally, got away scot-free.”
Pruitt added, “They didn’t have to take steps until 2030. So we’ve penalized ourselves through lost jobs while China and India didn’t take steps to address the issue internationally. So Paris was just a bad deal, in my estimation.”
The EPA chief has made similar comments about the Paris accord before, arguing that “...when you front-load your costs, as we endeavored to do in that agreement, and then China and India back-loaded their costs for 2030 and beyond, that’s not good for America. That’s not an America first type of approach.”
Pruitt faced intense backlash several weeks ago when he questioned the role CO2 plays in climate change; in an interview on CNBC, he said, “I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that [CO2 is] a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”
Despite President Trump’s previous claims that climate change was a hoax, people close to him have reportedly voiced differing opinions on whether the U.S. should pull out of the Paris agreement which was adopted by over 195 countries in 2015 in a worldwide effort to curb greenhouse emissions.
The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has dismissed the Paris climate agreement as “a bad deal.”
During an appearance on ABC News’ “This Week” Sunday, Scott Pruitt criticized the accord by saying, “What was wrong with Paris was not just that it was, you know, failed to be treated as a treaty, but China and India...the largest producers of CO2 internationally, got away scot-free.”
Pruitt added, “They didn’t have to take steps until 2030. So we’ve penalized ourselves through lost jobs while China and India didn’t take steps to address the issue internationally. So Paris was just a bad deal, in my estimation.”
The EPA chief has made similar comments about the Paris accord before, arguing that “...when you front-load your costs, as we endeavored to do in that agreement, and then China and India back-loaded their costs for 2030 and beyond, that’s not good for America. That’s not an America first type of approach.”
Pruitt faced intense backlash several weeks ago when he questioned the role CO2 plays in climate change; in an interview on CNBC, he said, “I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that [CO2 is] a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”
Despite President Trump’s previous claims that climate change was a hoax, people close to him have reportedly voiced differing opinions on whether the U.S. should pull out of the Paris agreement which was adopted by over 195 countries in 2015 in a worldwide effort to curb greenhouse emissions.