PRESS RELEASE: Heartland Institute Experts React to Reports President Trump Will Pull U.S. Out of Paris Climate Treaty

President Donald Trump tweeted last week from the G7 summit that he will make a decision this week on whether to leave or stay in the Paris Climate Treaty. Reports in the past few days say he has told “confidants” he will withdraw from the agreement, negotiated by President Barack Obama at the Conference of the Parties (COP-21) in Paris in December 2015.

The Heartland Institute has long urged President Trump to withdraw. A special webpage outlining Heartland’s work on the subject – including footage from its “counter conference” at COP-21 – can be found here.

The following statements from environment and energy policy experts at The Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank – may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Media Specialist Billy Aouste at [email protected] and 312/377-4000 or (cell) 847/445-7554.


“President Trump would make exactly the right call by deciding to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Treaty. Staying in would make it impossible to implement his America First Energy Plan. Staying in would result in U.S. taxpayers and consumers paying hundreds of billions of dollars in higher taxes and higher energy costs solely for the benefit of crony capitalists in the ‘renewable’ energy industry and Third World dictators. Staying in would not benefit the global environment one whit, but instead, by impoverishing millions of people, would have exactly the opposite effect.

“In the next few days, Donald Trump can show he has what it takes to become one of America’s greatest presidents. Let’s hope he swings hard and aims for the upper deck, and that the men and women around him, both in the White House and in Congress, have the courage and intelligence to support his decision.”

Joseph Bast
President
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000


“Donald Trump was elected president to return the United States to a path where our fossil fuel resources are unleashed to power our future and drive our prosperity. The vehicle is the fossil-fuels-based America First Energy Plan, now U.S. policy under the Trump administration. President Trump recognizes that the anti-fossil-fuel Paris Accord set by President Obama is a disastrous plan for working men and women and the country itself – and he pledged to discard it in the presidential campaign.

“Paris was the product of President Obama mimicking the Al Gore approach to energy and carbon. Obama abused the formidable power of the presidency to drive an agenda to eliminate fossil fuel use in the name of a phantom vision based on everything but sound science and common sense. The Obama approach was to make energy in the U.S. scarce and expensive, resulting in real suffering for working men and women.

“President Trump has understood this from the start, and it appears he will make the absolutely correct and necessary decision to withdraw from Paris. That move will generate great praise for rejecting Paris and what it stands for. Under President Trump’s leadership, America and American energy will be great again, and the American people will be the beneficiaries.”

Fred Palmer
Senior Fellow, Energy Policy
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000


“President Trump appears poised to take an important, concrete step to putting America First by withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Accord and enacting energy policy that reflects his desire to foster economic growth.

“Dismantling the Clean Power Plan, a key component of the United States’ commitment under the Paris Accord, is an important step to ensuring low energy prices in the United States and making American manufacturing competitive in the global marketplace.”

Isaac Orr
Research Fellow, Energy and Environment Policy
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000


Adieu Paris! If in fact President Trump pulls the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement, it will be another big win for taxpayers, consumers, and energy producers in flyover country. producers in flyover country. Angela Merkel and what is left of the E.U. are not happy (itself a victory), but fake science and globalism would take a big hit with this move.

“The president’s strong statements at the G7 conference, followed by this increasingly likely decision, show that the U.S. is not going to be the sugar daddy for this climate scam. The Paris Climate Agreement and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change will collapse without the U.S. willing to pick up the tab. “Building on the fresh leadership at EPA and the departments of Interior and Energy, getting out of the Paris Agreement will show that we are moving in the right direction. In a word, gagnant.”

Bette Grande
Research Fellow, Energy Policy
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000

Ms. Grande represented the 41st District in the North Dakota Legislature from 1996 to 2014.


“Proponents of the Paris treaty acknowledge that it won’t have a noticeable effect on global temperatures even if the signees adhere to its conditions, which is in itself an exceedingly unlikely scenario. They have thus resorted to appeals to self-interest, claiming nations will experience huge windfalls from investments in green energy. The evidence shows, however, that government-mandated or -subsidized investments in green tech make energy vastly more expensive and cost many more jobs than they allegedly create.

“The great French economist Frédéric Bastiat pointed out the foolishness of breaking windows in order to employ people to fix them: It ignores the diversion of resources from other, better uses. The Paris agreement is window-breaking on a global scale.”

S.T. Karnick
Director of Publications
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000


“I hope the U.S. withdraws from the Paris Agreement on climate change. Then countries like Canada, which follow America on this file, will be more likely to get out as well.”

Tom Harris
Executive Director, International Climate Science Coalition
Ottawa, Canada
Policy Advisor, Energy and Environment
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000


“It is fair for President Trump to delay withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement as long as he has. As with any President, Trump gained new sources of information and data after getting to the White House that he did not have access to as a candidate. It was prudent for Trump to incorporate and digest this new information and fully understand the economic, environmental and geopolitical implications of the decision whether to stay in the treaty or withdraw.

The fact Trump is reportedly taking the U.S. out of the treaty confirmed what economists, scientists, and climate realists have long argued: The Paris Climate Agreement would do little or nothing to prevent dangerous human-caused warming, even if it is occurring, but would harm the United States economically – putting the U.S. at disadvantage with global commercial and geopolitical competitors including China, India, and Russia. Trump recognizes fossil fuels are critical to continued economic progress.”

H. Sterling Burnett
Research Fellow, Environment & Energy Policy
The Heartland Institute
Managing Editor, Environment & Climate News
[email protected]
312/377-4000