Donald Trump says Rishi Sunak was 'smart' to water down key climate pledges

Sky News ^ | Sep 24 | Sky News

[RandFan]

Donald Trump has described Rishi Sunak's U-turns on a raft of net zero measures as "smart", insisting the climate crisis is a "green new hoax".

It comes days after the prime minister confirmed he would delay a ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by five years and weakened targets to phase out gas boilers.

The former US president posted on his own social media platform Truth Social: "Prime Minister Sunak of the United Kingdom has very substantially rolled back the ridiculous "Climate Mandates" that the United States is pushing on everyone, especially itself.

"I always knew Sunak was smart, that he wasn't going to destroy and bankrupt his nation for fake climate alarmists that don't have a clue.

"In the meantime the US keeps rolling merrily along, spending Trillions of Dollars trying to do that which is not doable, while at the same time breathing in the filthy and totally untreated air floating over our once great Country from China, India, Russia, and Parts Unknown.

"They are all building Coal Fired Plants by the hundreds each year, and Germany, which has almost destroyed itself with its ridiculous form of the Green New Hoax, has just joined in.

"Congratulations to Prime Minister Sunak for recognizing this SCAM before it was too late! The Green New Hoax will take down the US, perhaps even sooner than our Open Border of Death. IT MUST BE STOPPED. MAGA!!!

[RandFan]

Wow quite an emphatic post from Trump on the climate agenda.

I like it!

[nwrep]

Good post by Trump, praising the British Brahmin for his brains.

[devere]

Yes, Trump has that right. It’s unfortunate he didn’t take more emphatic action when he was POTUS, but that is spilled milk.

[Nextrush]

Rishi Sunak needs to do a 180 on so much but this is a “start”.

[MattMusson]

If you believe Climate Change is an existential threat yet you fly away on vacation, you are a complete shit. You believe you are killing the planet and you are doing it anyway.

[Larry Lucido]

The former US president posted on his own social media platform Truth Social:

***

That’s all nice and everything, but I hear there’s an even bigger site called “X” (formerly Twitter) that he can post on once again. Might want to use that platform on occasion.

[odawg]

“It’s unfortunate he didn’t take more emphatic action when he was POTUS, but that is spilled milk.”

With all the unleashed wolves at his throat the whole time, including some in his own party, McConnell and Paul Ryan, just for starters, I think he accomplished a great deal, thank you.

[BlueStateRightist]

Nuclear power: renewable energy without equal. We could solve the “problem” in 10 years with a concerted effort of building nuclear power plants. 1-2 in each state. But the left won’t advocate for it, so they are hypocrites.

[rlmorel]

devere, while I understand your post, I have to take issue with the assertion that Trump didn't "take more emphatic action" when he was President.

Besides making the USA energy independent, his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord on June 1, 2017 was a milestone. Some excerpts from his Rose Garden statement that day:

---

"...As President, I can put no other consideration before the well-being of American citizens. The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers — who I love — and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production.

Thus, as of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. This includes ending the implementation of the nationally determined contribution and, very importantly, the Green Climate Fund which is costing the United States a vast fortune..."

"...Compliance with the terms of the Paris Accord and the onerous energy restrictions it has placed on the United States could cost America as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025 according to the National Economic Research Associates. This includes 440,000 fewer manufacturing jobs — not what we need — believe me, this is not what we need — including automobile jobs, and the further decimation of vital American industries on which countless communities rely. They rely for so much, and we would be giving them so little. According to this same study, by 2040, compliance with the commitments put into place by the previous administration would cut production for the following sectors: paper down 12 percent; cement down 23 percent; iron and steel down 38 percent; coal — and I happen to love the coal miners — down 86 percent; natural gas down 31 percent. The cost to the economy at this time would be close to $3 trillion in lost GDP and 6.5 million industrial jobs, while households would have $7,000 less income and, in many cases, much worse than that..."

"...Not only does this deal subject our citizens to harsh economic restrictions, it fails to live up to our environmental ideals. As someone who cares deeply about the environment, which I do, I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States — which is what it does -– the world’s leader in environmental protection, while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters. For example, under the agreement, China will be able to increase these emissions by a staggering number of years — 13. They can do whatever they want for 13 years. Not us. India makes its participation contingent on receiving billions and billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid from developed countries. There are many other examples. But the bottom line is that the Paris Accord is very unfair, at the highest level, to the United States..."

"...Further, while the current agreement effectively blocks the development of clean coal in America — which it does, and the mines are starting to open up. We’re having a big opening in two weeks. Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, so many places. A big opening of a brand-new mine. It’s unheard of. For many, many years, that hasn’t happened. They asked me if I’d go. I’m going to try.

"...China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So we can’t build the plants, but they can, according to this agreement. India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020. Think of it: India can double their coal production. We’re supposed to get rid of ours. Even Europe is allowed to continue construction of coal plants..."

"...In short, the agreement doesn’t eliminate coal jobs, it just transfers those jobs out of America and the United States, and ships them to foreign countries. This agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States.

"...The agreement is a massive redistribution of United States wealth to other countries..."

"...The Paris Agreement handicaps the United States economy in order to win praise from the very foreign capitals and global activists that have long sought to gain wealth at our country’s expense. They don’t put America first. I do, and I always will..."

"...The same nations asking us to stay in the agreement are the countries that have collectively cost America trillions of dollars through tough trade practices and, in many cases, lax contributions to our critical military alliance. You see what’s happening. It’s pretty obvious to those that want to keep an open mind..."

"...At what point does America get demeaned? At what point do they start laughing at us as a country? We want fair treatment for its citizens, and we want fair treatment for our taxpayers. We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore. And they won’t be. They won’t be..."

"...I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris. I promised I would exit or renegotiate any deal which fails to serve America’s interests. Many trade deals will soon be under renegotiation. Very rarely do we have a deal that works for this country, but they’ll soon be under renegotiation. The process has begun from day one. But now we’re down to business..."

"...Beyond the severe energy restrictions inflicted by the Paris Accord, it includes yet another scheme to redistribute wealth out of the United States through the so-called Green Climate Fund — nice name — which calls for developed countries to send $100 billion to developing countries all on top of America’s existing and massive foreign aid payments. So we’re going to be paying billions and billions and billions of dollars, and we’re already way ahead of anybody else. Many of the other countries haven’t spent anything, and many of them will never pay one dime..."

"...Of course, the world’s top polluters have no affirmative obligations under the Green Fund, which we terminated. America is $20 trillion in debt. Cash-strapped cities cannot hire enough police officers or fix vital infrastructure. Millions of our citizens are out of work. And yet, under the Paris Accord, billions of dollars that ought to be invested right here in America will be sent to the very countries that have taken our factories and our jobs away from us. So think of that..."

"...It is time to put Youngstown, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — along with many, many other locations within our great country — before Paris, France. It is time to make America great again..."

---

When have you heard ANY American President do anything less than pay lip service to the global warming at best, and at worst, commit billions of dollars to this idiotic cause? Trump, in a key speech heard around the world, came right out and said:

The agreement is a massive redistribution of United States wealth to other countries...

I feel strongly about this because, without support, and Trump had nearly zero support from his own party, he cannot create legislation. What he CAN do is, as Chief Executive, set the tone. And he set it, publicly, unequivocally, and incontrovertibly in his Rose Garden speech.

And he did it in an EXTREMELY emphatic way.

[devere]

Yes, Trump did do those good things. But after many rumors that he would hire Professor William Happer to oversee environmental policy, Trump failed to do so, and he also failed to reverse the Obama EPA’s erroneous and unscientific designation of CO2 as a pollutant. Trump didn’t hire Happer and didn’t hire RFK Jr, and we have all (including Trump) paid a heavy price for his lack of political courage.

[rlmorel]

We part ways on this.

That speech in the Rose Garden, and that action took a huge amount of political courage, not a smidgen of which has been seen from any other major political figure.

The President is a Chief Executive, not a dictator. He CANNOT make law.

[MinorityRepublican]

Rishi Sunak needs to do a 180 on so much but this is a “start”

So far what I've heard from Sunak, I like him. He seems to be pragmatic. He knows he has to "play the game" and then he will do what he has to do to get it done.

Too bad he's going to lose in 2024, I suspect we'll see a British version of Gavin Newsom or Justin Trudeau take charge by then.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I like it, too. All one needs to do to protect our environment is to find ways to conserve. There is NO NEED to destroy entire sectors of our economy to prove a questionable point (fighting “climate change”).

[Vaduz]

Good to see some are finally wising up to the green new hoax.

[Nextrush]

Nigel Farage would bring in better policies.

Sunak is too Woke on social issues and continues to allow the NHS to deny seriously ill people options to seek treatment in other places.

The NHS putting people to death like Charlie Gard in the past and others in the present is unacceptable.

[MinorityRepublican]

Nigel Farage would bring in better policies.

Yeah but he's seen as too extreme.

[Nextrush]

Farage’s political platform the “Reform UK” party is polling in the six to eight percent range without him as leader his stand-in Richard Tice at the helm now.

You may be too pessimistic things are unraveling but the likely outcome is Sir Keir Starmer Liberal Capitalist Labor leading the shell of a once great nation.

[MinorityRepublican]

You may be too pessimistic things are unraveling but the likely outcome is Sir Keir Starmer Liberal Capitalist Labor leading the shell of a once great nation.

The Conservatives have been in power since forever. The only thing they have delivered is Brexit. Other than that, nothing. So people will turn to Labor.

In the U.S., we tend to rotate between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and that's usually the case in the UK as well.