Silke Jasso
On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris global climate agreement, a controversial move that even has his cabinet split.
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Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky took to the airwaves shortly after to explain why he supports the president’s decision.
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“One of the things that I think President Trump has been really good on is being concerned about American jobs and not signing international agreements that would put us at an economic disadvantage,” Paul told Fox News host Jenna Lee.
“I think this Paris accord that President Obama signed is a disaster for American jobs,” Paul added.
Rand Paul on climate change: "Predicting the future is notoriously difficult. … Modeling is not an exact science." https://t.co/kdUZ7wBjRU
— CNN (@CNN) June 1, 2017
The senator continued:
“There have been estimates from independent third parties that say we could lose over 6 million jobs. It’s just not fair. Why would we sign an agreement that puts us at an economic disadvantage? The agreement says we need to reduce our carbon output by 20 percent, but China doesn’t have to do anything for the next 20 years. How in the world could that possibly be fair?”
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Earlier this month, Paul wrote an op-ed for Fox News urging Trump to pull the U.S. out of the climate pact. Paul also said that if U.S. participation in the Paris agreement were put to a congressional vote it would “fail overwhelmingly.”
On CNN later, the senator also challenged the notion that U.S. non-participation would be environmentally calamitous. “The great climate changes in our history all happened before the Industrial Revolution,” Paul told CNN. “Is there climate change? Can man have an impact?
“Yes, but let’s don’t be so alarmist as to say such outrageous things, that if we don’t sign the Paris accord there’s going to be ‘mass extinction?’ That’s a ridiculous statement,” Paul said.
Disclosure: I co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Sen. Rand Paul.
