Gore: Trump decision on climate change deal ‘reckless and indefensible action’

by Ben Kamisar - 06/01/17 4:25 PM ET

Former Vice President Al Gore, who has become a leading advocate for the dangers of climate change since leaving office, lambasted President Trump’s decision Thursday to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. He called it a “reckless and indefensible action” in a statement.

“It undermines America’s standing in the world and threatens to damage humanity’s ability to solve the climate change in time,” Gore said.

My statement on Today’s Decision by the Trump Administration to Withdraw from the Paris Agreement: https://t.co/eDEFv5b1nS pic.twitter.com/SzHJU3D0Mr

— Al Gore (@algore) June 1, 2017

{mosads}But Gore added that America’s government, civic and business leaders will take up the slack to prevent climate change.

“We are in the middle of a clean energy revolution that no single person or group can stop,” he said.

“President Trump’s decision is profoundly in conflict with what the majority of Americans want from our president, but no matter what he does we will ensure that our inevitable transition to a clean energy economy continues,” he continued.

Gore, who created the popular documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” that explored climate change, has firsthand experience with a Republican president nixing a Democratic-led climate treaty. As former President Bill Clinton’s vice president, he played a chief role in negotiating the Kyoto Protocol — an international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But after the Senate showed little interest in passing Kyoto in the Clinton years, then-President George W. Bush abandoned it for good.

Trump announced Thursday that he will pull out of the Paris agreement, fulfilling a campaign promise. The Paris climate deal had created a nonbinding pact among 195 nations to work against the effects of climate change.

While the move drew criticism from environmentalists like Gore, many conservatives praised Trump and said that the pact was too much of a burden on the American economy.