Former Vice President Al Gore on Sunday called President Donald Trump’s decision to exit the Paris climate agreement a "reckless" choice that “undermines America's standing in the world,” but he said American business leaders and governors will move forward and reduce carbon emissions without Trump.
"I think it was reckless; I think it was indefensible and undermines America's standing in the world and threatens the ability of humanity to solve the climate crisis in time," Gore told host Jake Tapper on CNN’s "State of the Union." "The decision was a terribly mistaken decision, but in the aftermath of that decision, we need to move forward regardless of what he decides."
Gore, who since losing his run for the presidency in 2000 has become a major advocate for fighting climate change, added: "And the good news is, that the American people are going to provide leadership even if President Trump will not provide leadership."
Citing the governors, mayors and business leaders who have stood by the climate agreement since Trump announced the nation's exit on Thursday, Gore said, “We are going to see continued reductions in emissions in the U.S. We're going to meet the commitments under the climate pact in Paris, regardless of what President Trump does, and so we're seeing a lot of progress.”
"The Paris agreement was really historic," he said. "But it laid the foundation for the faster progress that’s needed in order to solve the climate crisis in time. And we could have faster progress with presidential leadership, but we're going to keep moving forward regardless of President Trump."
More than 190 countries signed onto the Paris accord, which was negotiated in 2015 to set targets for decreasing carbon emissions to fight man-made climate change. Of all the nations that took part in the process to reach the agreement, only two others, Syria and Nicaragua, rejected it.
Trump and his Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt, have described their decision to abandon the agreement as necessary for protecting American jobs. Pruitt reiterated that reasoning in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Chuck Todd on Sunday, describing the decision as “not political."
"This is a decision that was right for this country from a jobs perspective, an economy perspective, and an environmental perspective," Pruitt said, adding: "Paris represents a bad deal for this country."
Gore, though, said the decision made little sense, given that the emission targets for each country are voluntary, and that he had thought it was possible that Trump would not go through with pulling out of the pact.
Gore met with Trump during the presidential transition at the request of Ivanka Trump, who favored staying in the Paris agreement. While Gore would not go into details about their discussion, he said “none of it would surprise you.”
“I did think there was a chance that he would come to his senses and not make the decision that he announced this past week,” Gore said.
Gore has spoken with Ivanka Trump about climate change since their meeting, he told Tapper, though not since Trump’s announcement last week.
Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, on Sunday defended the United States’ exit from the Paris climate accord, saying it will benefit the country and create more jobs. He also repeated his refrain that questions about President Trump’s personal views on climate change are beside the point.
“When we joined Paris, the rest of the world applauded … because it put this country at disadvantage,” Pruitt told Fox News’s Chris Wallace on Sunday morning. “It’s a bad deal for this country. We’re going to make sure as we make deals we’re going to put the interests of America first.”
Pruitt, who stood beside Trump as he announced the decision Thursday, faced a grilling on several Sunday morning shows. Viewed as a huge influencer in the decision, the 49-year-old former Oklahoma attorney general has taken a lead role in undoing environmental regulations imposed under the Obama administration.
President Donald Trump announced his decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord at 3 pm Eastern in the White House Rose Garden. A live stream of the announcement is embedded Below.
Multiple reports indicate that Trump is likely to announce a withdrawal from the agreement — though many of these reports have expressed at least some uncertainty, including about precisely what language Trump would use.
Jonathan Swan of Axios reported that, per “two sources with direct knowledge of the decision,” Trump has decided to pull out of the agreement. The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay reports that the White House is telling congressional staff that Trump will pull out. The Associated Press’s Jill Colvin and Julie Pace, though, report that “Trump’s decision may not be entirely clear-cut” and that aides continued to deliberate on “caveats in the language.”
The actual Paris deal — agreed to by 195 countries in December 2015 — is aspirational rather than binding, calling on countries to set goals for emissions reduction. Still, the withdrawal of the US would send an unmistakable signal to the rest of the world that the country with the second-highest carbon emissions is no longer interested in even pretending to care about reducing them.
For years now it’s been clear that blocking environmental regulations and obstructing action on climate change are top Republican Party priorities. The GOP’s leading politicians and media outlets have tended to praise fossil fuel companies and ignore or cast doubt on climate science. The major Republican presidential candidates harshly criticized the Paris deal in particular, and Trump promised to withdraw from it during the campaign.
Still, withdrawing from such a recent agreement that the vast majority of countries across the world have signed on to has serious consequences for America’s role as a global leader. So the question of whether the US should actually pull out of the agreement has reportedly been the subject of intense debate within the Trump administration.
According to Politico’s Andrew Restuccia and Josh Dawsey, White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt have been the leading voices urging Trump to withdraw, while Ivanka Trump and the so-called “New York” or “globalist” White House camp have been advocating for staying in. Silicon Valley business leaders like Apple CEO Tim Cook and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have also been arguing that the US should stick to the agreement.
