Trump blames India, China for quitting Paris climate deal

Trump blames India, China for quitting Paris climate deal

U.S. President Donald Trump. (File Photo: IANS/Xinhua)

Washington, Feb 24 (IANS) US President Donald Trump has once again blamed India and China for his decision to pull out of the Paris climate deal last year, saying that the "unfair" accord would have imposed "draconian financial and economic burdens" on the US, as it would have made Washington pay for nations which benefitted the most from the deal.Trump had announced the withdrawal from the landmark climate pact in June, stating that it would have imposed "wildly unfair environmental standards on American businesses and workers". He said the Paris deal would have cost his country trillions of dollars, killed jobs, hindered the oil, gas, coal and manufacturing industries. However, he had also said that he was "open to negotiate a better deal for the US or re-enter the accord on improved terms". "We knocked out the Paris Climate Accord. Would have been a disaster. Would have been a disaster for our country," the US President said at Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday.He targeted India and China, saying both these nations were benefiting most from the Paris deal, which was "unfair" to the US."You know, basically, it (the Paris accord) said, you have a lot of oil and gas that we found -- you know, technology has been amazing -- and we found things that we never knew. But we have massive -- just about the top in the world -- we have massive energy reserves. We have coal. We have so much. And basically, they were saying, don't use it, you can't use it," Trump said, expressing his displeasure with the pact which was agreed by nearly 200 nations over the period of years."So what it does is it makes us uncompetitive with other countries. I told them, it's not going to happen." "And China, their agreement didn't kick in until 2030... Our agreement kicks in immediately. Russia, they're allowed to go back into the 1990s, which was not a clean environmental time," he said.Talking about India and other nations, Trump said: "Other countries, big countries -- India and others -- we had to pay, because they considered them a growing country. "What are we? Are we allowed to grow, too? Ok? No, Are we allowed to grow?," he said. "They called India a developing nation. They call China a developing nation. But the US? We're developed. We can pay," Trump said. "The country knows what I'm doing... We couldn't build. We couldn't farm. If you had a puddle on your land, they called it a lake for the purposes of environmentals. I mean, it's crazy. It's crazy," Trump said. The US President had earlier also singled out India saying that "India makes its participation contingent on receiving billions of dollars in foreign aid".Many scientists and environmentalists said the planet will reach more dangerous levels of warming sooner because of Trump's decision as America contributes hugely to carbon dioxide and global rising temperatures.--IANSsoni/dg

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