Commerce secretary: Trump ‘is an environmentalist’

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says President Trump’s “pro-environment” views informed his Thursday decision to take the United States out of the Paris climate deal.

“[Trump] is an environmentalist,” he said Friday on NBC’s “The Today Show.” “I’ve known him for a long time. He’s very pro-environment.

“There’s nothing that the withdrawal requires us to do that we don’t want to do. The country has actually reduced its emissions quite a little bit.”

{mosads}Ross claimed that the Paris agreement put unfair burdens on the U.S. compared to countries like China. The Paris agreement was nonbinding on its signatories.

“Those other countries aren’t front-running burdens the way we were asked to do,” he said. “We were giving money up front.

“This agreement as I understand it would have allowed China to increase its emissions all the way out ’til 2030. That’s hardly climate control. Is that a balanced deal? I don’t think so.”

Trump on Thursday said he would formally remove the U.S. from the 195-nation Paris climate agreement, making the U.S. only the third country in the world not to agree to the deal’s terms.

The president’s move fulfilled a promise from his 2016 election campaign.

“We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore, and they won’t be,” Trump said. “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”

Trump faced pressure from world leaders, environmental groups and business leaders not to leave the 2015 accord.

The nonbinding agreement consisted of individual greenhouse gas limits determined by each signatory nation.

Former President Barack Obama had pledged that the U.S. would cut its emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025.