Trump Will 'Keep an Open Mind' About the Paris Climate Change Agreement

So says the president-elect in an interview this afternoon with the New York Times.

Indiablooms

During the presidential campaign Donald Trump suggested that man-made climate change was a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese.* In addition, he declared that he would "cancel" the Paris climate change agreement. Today during an luncheon interview at the New York Times, president-elect Trump seems to have backtracked bit with regard to the Paris Agreement. From the Times:

President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Tuesday that he would "keep an open mind" about whether to pull the United States out of a landmark multinational agreement on climate change.

During his presidential campaign, Mr. Trump repeatedly said he would withdraw from the Paris climate accord. But on Tuesday, he said, "I'm looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it."

Just exactly how to square his climate change open-mindedness with his promises to somehow revive the coal industry and deregulate fossil fuel production is not clear.

Addendum: Apparently Trump also told the Times reporters and editors that with regard to climate change, "I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much."

*As astute commenters have pointed out the hoax line was from a 2012 tweet. I hope that my error did not unduly confuse readers.

Comments

[Noodlez]

What a cuck!

[DEATFBIRSECIA]

Behold the I-Was-Just-Kidding President.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Oh. My. GOD. Next thing you know the border wall will be mostly fence and not even all that great.

[SugarFree]

It's really more a hedge.

[Pro Libertate]

Excellent.

[Cdr Lytton]

Well fine but Trump is going to make Mexico maintain it.

[SugarFree]

"And they are going to trim OUR side as well!"

[Cdr Lytton]

When's the next installment of Hat and Hair, btw?

[Ship of Theseus]

hip hip HOORAY! TRUMP FOR GOD KING!!!

[Pro Libertate]

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now. . . .

[MikeP]

No Stairway. Denied!

[Pro Libertate]

It's a good song, especially when sung in the voice of Dr. Zaius.

[Jimbo]

I do like a nice trimmed bush

[Austrian Anarchy]

Here you go.

[Jimbo]

Thank you!

[Rufus The Monocled]

Spruce.

Nice smell.

And I think they make cola out of it too.

[Ship of Theseus]

Breaking News: Donald Trump is open to doing whatever he thinks is going to be popular with the general public.

C'mon, Bailey. Trump doesn't actually know what he thinks about this. He doesn't give a shit other than what polls and his Twitter says. He doesn't have some principled stand about it, so let's not pretend like he's reneging on some grand promise or doing something antithetical to his beliefs.

Frankly, I him dumping this climate pact bullshit was one of the few reasons I was ready to defend him about... so I'm not shocked he might stick with it.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...

[Austrian Anarchy]

I love the origins of that song.

[MikeP]

During the presidential campaign Donald Trump suggested that man-made climate change was a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese.

Citation needed.

[Apatheist ?_??]

He tweeted it.

[MikeP]

During the campaign?

[Ship of Theseus]

goo.gl/Fn2LFmcontent_copyCopy short URL

[Ship of Theseus]

Ack.

http://tinyurl.com/zvzkapj

[Austrian Anarchy]

IIRC, he was not yet campaigning on "11:15 AM - 6 Nov 2012"

[Ship of Theseus]

I'm well aware. I said as much below.

[Apatheist ?_??]

Doesn't seem like it was during the campaign. Not that it matters, its not a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese but if he truly believes that and dismantles the EPA I don't care what he believes.

[Ship of Theseus]

He doesn't and he won't.

[Pro Libertate]

How do I know you're the real Ship of Theseus?

[Ship of Theseus]

None of my boards were ever replaced. It was a trick question.

[Pro Libertate]

Do you have original receipts?

[Ship of Theseus]

They didn't survive the several millenia since I was made.

[Pro Libertate]

Well. No receipts and a missing "n."

[Ship of Theseus]

Hey, I'm an anthropomorphic ship. Cut me a little slack.

[Ship of Theseus]

It wasn't during the campaign, it was in 2012.

[tarran]

He actually did say that. It was a tweet IIRC.

[Suthenboy]

It's a hoax alright, but the china thing? Where did that come from?

[Austrian Anarchy]

Only Assange knows for sure.

[MikeP]

I am incredibly disappointed in NPR when they repeat this four-year-old joke as undeniable fact. And it is only one example of their damning Trump based on virtually no evidence.

But I expect more objectivity here. Or at least a recognition that most of Trump's "positions" are nothing more than unconsidered opinions spouted in front of dim audiences to rile their rage against the elite order.

[Austrian Anarchy]

But I expect more objectivity here.

Seems we should all stop doing that.

[VG Zaytsev]

Keeping an open mind about AGW will not lead to the conclusions that the left believes it will

[Suthenboy]

The left cant tell the difference between their invented narrative and reality. Most of them really do believe their own bullshit and think it is so self-evident that no reasonable person wouldn't.

[Austrian Anarchy]

It worked on Bailey.

[prolefeed]

Hmmm ... an open mind the way the Chinese government keeps an open mind by agreeing to climate treaties that have no intention of adhering to?

[tarran]

I think, yes, exactly in that manner.

[Suthenboy]

Toss the fuckin' thing in the trash.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

He hasn't even been sworn in yet SB, lets not get ahead of ourselves.

[Playa Manhattan.]

If it's already in the trash, maybe it will get taken out before he gets sworn in. Then, if he changes his mind, it's already gone.

Did you think of that??? Did you???

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Or send it to the Senate for ratification and let it die there.

[MikeP]

Excellent!

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

The most infuriating thing about the Paris Agreement is the conceit on the Left that it magically supersedes US law and sovereignty but isn't a treaty that needs Senate approval per the Constitution.

They were absolutely going to just implement it if Hillary had won.

[MikeP]

Yep. For example:

During his campaign, Donald Trump called climate change a hoax.* And he vowed to abandon the Paris climate agreement signed last year by President Obama and almost 200 countries.**

* No he didn't.

** "...by President Obama and almost 200 other people whose signatures are not legally binding in international agreements."

[Ken Shultz]

"Just exactly how to square his climate change open-mindedness with his promises to somehow revive the coal industry and deregulate fossil fuel production is not clear."

Barack Obama spouted bullshit about saving the world while ignoring the economic impact of the Paris treaty; Donald Trump can spout bullshit about saving the world while ignoring the environmental impacts of deregulating, too. Actually, that's the smart way to do it.

What's the enforcement mechanism in the treaty for failing to do our part anyway--naming and shaming? Donald Trump just won the presidency after being named and shamed as a xenophobe, a racist, a misogynist, and as a perpetrator of sexual assault. Why should he care if the Chinese or the Europeans name and shame him for revitalizing the coal industry?

Trump couldn't ask for a better endorsement than being denounced by the Chinese for revitalizing the coal industry

That being said, Trump will have a hard time revitalizing the coal industry. My understanding is that every coal plant in the country is already compliant with those mercury standards, and coal might be cheaper without regulation, but even without that regulation, it still wouldn't be cheaper than natural gas.

[TheZeitgeist]

Paris is all about the checks. By 2020 there's supposed to be something like $100 billion in checks going to Third World for 'mitigation' and 'adaptation.'

The carbondoom cottage-indsutry will stumble along at current welfare levels for the usual suspects - for instance to keep holding annual Carbon Confabs - but will never actually reach $100 billion a year (or anything like that number) going to the kleptocrats.

I almost get impression that whole huge-checks thing is carrot to keep the kleptos coming to the Carbon Cons where their collective poverty and multculti pastiche lend the astroturf moral authority needed, but ultimately it is carrot on end of a string they'll never actually get their hands on.

[Ken Shultz]

My understanding is that is not legally binding.

"Poorer countries had pushed for a legally binding provision requiring that rich countries appropriate a minimum of at least $100 billion a year to help them mitigate and adapt to the ravages of climate change. In the final deal, that $100 billion figure appears only in a preamble, not in the legally binding portion of the agreement.

"We've always said that it was important that the $100 billion was anchored in the agreement," said Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, a negotiator for the Democratic Republic of Congo and the incoming leader of a coalition known as the Least Developed Countries coalition. In the end, though, they let it go.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12......html?_r=0

It's in the non-binding section of a non-binding treaty--non-binding^2

[MikeP]

Unless it is ratified by the Senate, the US's part in this "agreement" is certainly not legally binding.

Indeed, the US's acting on it in any budgetary way would be illegally binding.

[Ken Shultz]

Well, then it's non-binding^3.

Point was, there's a part of the treaty where it says things are legally binding. The section Zeitgeist was talking about isn't in the legally binding section.

Point is, even if the Supreme Court for some reason ruled that the treaty itself is legally binding in the United States, the part about us giving the developing world at least $100 billion a year to mitigate the effects of climate change is not in the legally binding part of the treaty.

Preamble:

Save Humanity. World is Dying.

Bullshit. $100 billion. More bullshit.

Legally Binding:

We hereby agree to x, y, z.

Conclusion:

World saved. Everybody Dance!

[Res ipsa loquitur]

Hillary would pay it....Trump ? Who knows.

[sasob]

Yes, she would - but she'd make sure half of it got kicked back to her foundation.

[Austrian Anarchy]

By 2020 there's supposed to be something like $100 billion in checks going to Third World for 'mitigation' and 'adaptation.'

We get to call backward shitoles Third World again? Great!

[AddictionMyth]

Oh please. He's just trying to moderate so people won't panic before the inauguration. Then yes, climate change will be a hoax again and heads will spin as promised.

[Ken Shultz]

He doesn't need to call it a hoax to treat it like one.

Just because Obama couldn't do his job without dividing people doesn't mean Trump has to do the same thing.

Some of the divisive shit Obama did was just asinine. He didn't have to force nuns to finance fornication by way of ObamaCare--he could have exempted them easily!

Trump doesn't need to operate like that, too. And what difference does it make to you if he never comes out and says that climate change is a hoax again--so long as he treats it like one?

Actually, if dismantling ineffective and expensive regulation requires him to NOT say that climate change is a hoax, then he should never say it out loud. Why inspire opposition by saying unnecessary things to inflame it?

I've heard so much inflammatory stupidity from Barack Obama over the past eight years, I'd love to see Trump smack him and his fans in the grill with the truth, too--but I'm willing to settle for good government, rational policy, and Obama's entire legacy disappearing instead.

Who cares what Trump says? It's what he does that's important.

[Rufus The Monocled]

KEEP AN OPEN MIND!

Buy my essential oils. It'll make you shit and sleep better.

KEEP AN OPEN MIND OR IT WON'T WORK!

[BigW]

Ron, you act as if the Paris Climate Accords aren't completely contrary to nearly all values that Libertarians hold...

[Playa Manhattan.]

If we're going to do the fucking climate change thing, let's fucking do it.

1 year in federal prison for each cross country non-commercial flight that took place after 2008. No exceptions. No credits for making shitty documentaries.

We're saving the planet, right? RIGHT?

[Ship of Theseus]

This might solve sooo many problems...

[Juvenile Bluster]

How about for carbon emissions caused by your home over and above, say, the 99th percentile?

[Playa Manhattan.]

Let's see how full our prisons are before we do that.

I still want Clark Griswold style lights this Christmas. That could put me over the top.

[MikeP2]

Screw you....I like to burn stuff.

[CatoTheChipper]

"Just exactly how to square his climate change open-mindedness with his promises to somehow revive the coal industry and deregulate fossil fuel production is not clear."

In his YouTube address yesterday, Trump said he wanted "clean coal".

This hints at how he might think of squaring the two seemingly incompatible statements: carbon capture and sequestration. CCS reduces energy efficiency of electricity generation substantially, so it would require around 40% more coal to keep producing today's volume of coal-fired electricity supply. Plus some really big infrastructure spending: new power plants with carbon capture, CO2 pipelines, development of injection reservoirs, etc. JOBS! Who cares about whether they produce anything anymore?

[Ship of Theseus]

I can't wait until we start doing what the Chinese do - hire people to plant trees along the highway ... then subsequently send them back to uproot them all. Repeat as needed.

[Pan Zagloba "The Stickler"]

Oh hello there, Professor Krugman!

[Austrian Anarchy]

Winner!

[mad.casual]

I was thinking the other day, Ron, about all the fiction I've seen set in the near future (the 'White Christmas' episode of Black Mirror specifically), where climate change clearly has not affected the future as created by people who 'believe' in climate change. I think the climate movement really needs to start shaming misleading consumers and generating false expectations of a future that will never come to pass. It would be the morally consistent thing to do.

[mad.casual]

Grr... *clicks space where edit button should go*... "shaming these people for"

[Johnimo]

I'm thinking that a nice, little rock garden all along the border would be just as good as a wall. Didn't Al Gore say in 2005 that we had only ten years to reverse global warming before it would be "too late."

TOO LATE!

[The Lone Loner]

Of course! Companies and individuals make lots and lots and lots of money off the whole Chicken-Little global warming hysteria. So, the "public-private" partnership of cronyism goes on. He's a con-man, and the green scams are cons.