Ossoff: ‘History will condemn us’ if US withdraws from Paris deal

Georgia Democratic House candidate Jon Ossoff says the U.S. withdrawing from the Paris climate change agreement would hurt the nation for years to come.

“I agree with our military, our intelligence community, and peer-reviewed science that climate change is a major threat to our prosperity and our security, and if we walk away from this historic agreement now, history will condemn us,” Ossoff said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

He also noted more jobs could be created through the “economic potential of clean energy technology.” 

President Trump reportedly plans to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement Thursday.

{mosads}The move would mark a dramatic departure from the Obama administration, which was instrumental in crafting the deal. It also would make the U.S. an outlier among the world’s nations, nearly all of which support the climate accord.

The Obama administration, which helped negotiate the pact, had promised a 26 percent to 28 percent cut in the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, a pledge that Republicans had slammed as necessitating expensive, job-killing regulations.

Trump, who doubts the science behind climate change, has already begun the process of reversing American climate policies. 

Ossoff is running against Republican Karen Handel in a runoff election for an open Georgia House seat later this month. Former Rep. Tom Price (R) vacated the seat when he became Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services earlier this year.