WASHINGTON — As a businessman, President Trump was a frequent and scornful critic of the concept of climate change.
In the years before running for president, he called it “nonexistent,”
“mythical” and a “a total con job.” Whenever snow fell in New York, it
seemed, he would mock the idea of global warming.
“Global warming has been proven to be a canard repeatedly over and over again,” he wrote on Twitter in 2012. In another post later that year, he said,
“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in
order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” A year later, he wrote that “global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!”
But on Friday, a day after Mr. Trump withdrew the United States
from the Paris climate change accord, the White House refused to say
whether the president still considers climate change a hoax. As other
leaders around the world vowed to confront climate change without the
United States, Mr. Trump’s advisers fanned out to defend his decision
and, when pressed, said they did not know his view of the science
underlying the debate.
“I have not had an opportunity to have that discussion,” said Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary.
Graphic
What Is the Green Climate Fund and How Much Does the U.S. Actually Pay?
In announcing his decision to exit the Paris accord,
President Trump scorned the Green Climate Fund. Does the United States
contribute an outsize share?
“I do not speak for the president,” said Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary.
“You should ask him that,” said Kellyanne Conway, the White House counselor.
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Mr.
Trump offered no opportunity for anyone to ask him that on Friday. But
his current views, whatever they may be, presumably shaped his thinking
as he evaluated whether to remain in the Paris accord. Given that he
promised on Thursday to seek to re-enter the pact on better terms or
negotiate an entirely new deal that he said would be fairer to the
United States, his acceptance or denial of climate science seems likely
to determine his approach.
In
his speech announcing his decision, he did not address the science of
climate change or repeat any of the skepticism he has expressed for
years. Instead, he cast it largely in economic terms, arguing that
President Barack Obama
agreed to a bad deal for Americans that would handcuff the economy and
put the United States at a disadvantage against its international
competitors. He did not say the goal itself was pointless, only that it
would be too much of a burden.
But
administration officials clearly saw no benefit in clarifying. If they
affirmed that he still believed climate change to be fake, they would
expose him to even more criticism at home and abroad and complicate the
lives of those advisers who accept the broad scientific consensus. If
they asserted that he had changed his mind and now agreed that climate
change is real, then they would have to explain a flip-flop while
risking criticism from his own base.
Moreover,
recent weeks have reminded White House aides about the dangers of
making declarative statements about the president’s beliefs or actions
only to have him contradict them within days or even hours. When Mr.
Trump fired James B. Comey,
the F.B.I. director, he sent out his vice president and top aides to
give an explanation of his decision that quickly unraveled after he gave
an interview with a conflicting version of events.
Climate
science deniers, cheered by his decision to pull out of the Paris
agreement, seemed willing to live without a clearer statement taking on
what they call the bogus claims of environmental advocates.
“I
think his withdrawing us from Paris was the greatest action by a
president in my lifetime,” said Steve Milloy, who runs a website, JunkScience.com,
which aims to debunk climate change and who served on Mr. Trump’s
environmental transition team. “And he explained his action brilliantly.
Most substantive explanation I’ve ever heard from a president —
including Reagan.”
“What he believes,” Mr. Milloy added, “you need to get from him.”
Supporters
of the Paris accord said the White House refusal to outline Mr. Trump’s
beliefs on climate change indicated that he had not bothered to inform
himself on the issue before making a decision with enormous
consequences. “By not admitting what his views on this, the White House
is just hiding the fact that Trump is too incurious to actually look
seriously at the issue,” said Andrew Light, a former Obama State
Department official who helped negotiate the Paris pact.
Carol
Browner, a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator under
Bill Clinton and adviser to Mr. Obama, said Mr. Trump’s action seemed
founded on misinformation. “Seems he accepts junk science in his
decision making which makes you wonder if next he will repeal bans on
indoor smoking and put lead back in paint,” she said.
Scott
Pruitt, the administrator of the E.P.A. and a longtime critic of what
he calls “climate exaggerators,” said the question of what Mr. Trump
believed about the science never came up during the administration’s
deliberations over the Paris agreement.
Graphic
How Americans Think About Climate Change, in Six Maps
Americans overwhelmingly believe that global warming is
happening, and that carbon emissions should be scaled back. But fewer
are sure that it will harm them personally.
“What’s
interesting about all the discussions that we had through the last
several weeks have been focused on one singular issue: Is Paris good or
not for this country?” he told reporters at the White House. “That’s the
discussions I’ve had with the president.”
Mr.
Pruitt and other administration officials defended Mr. Trump’s decision
as a courageous action to protect the United States. “We have nothing
to be apologetic about as a country,” he said, noting that the country
has reduced its carbon emissions in recent years, attributing that to
innovation and technology rather than government regulation.
“So,
when we look at issues like this, we are leading with action and not
words,” he said. “I also want to say that exiting Paris does not mean
disengagement.”
Describing
his own views, Mr. Pruitt derided those “climate exaggerators,” who he
said make assertions with great certainty. Mr. Pruitt said he has
concluded that “global warming is occurring, that human activity
contributes to it in some manner” but “measuring with precision, from my
perspective, the degree of human contribution is very challenging.”
Mr.
Trump has not been so shy in the past about his opinions on the
subject. At one point in 2009, he signed an open letter to Mr. Obama
published as an ad in newspapers supporting “meaningful and effective
measures to control climate change,” although that may have just
reflected the influence of the three adult children who also signed.
Graphic
How Cities and States Reacted to Trump’s Decision to Exit the Paris Climate Deal
President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris
climate agreement drew immediate reaction from big-city mayors,
governors and Congress members.
But
he soon found climate change to be a favorite target on Twitter,
mentioning the topic scores of times over the years, particularly during
cold weather spells. “Any and all weather events are used by the GLOBAL
WARMING HOAXSTERS to justify higher taxes to save our planet!” he wrote in 2014. “They don’t believe it $$$$!”
As
he opened his presidential campaign, he told Hugh Hewitt, the
conservative radio host, that the weather changed naturally over time
and that there was not a major problem. “I’m not a believer in global
warming,” he said. “I’m not a believer in man-made global warming.”
After he won the election last November, he tempered his views in an interview
with The New York Times, saying that he believed “there is some
connectivity” between human activity and climate change and promising to
look at the issue with fresh eyes.
“I
have a very open mind,” he said. “And I’m going to study a lot of the
things that happened on it and we’re going to look at it very carefully.
But I have an open mind.”
By this week, however, Mr. Trump was no longer speaking his mind on the question of the science, and neither were his aides.
Mr.
Spicer said twice this week that he had not had the chance to ask the
president. Asked if he would find time to take the question to Mr.
Trump, he said, “If I can, I will.”
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