Donald Trump has signalled an end to the United States’ disastrous flirtation with green crony capitalism by promising to nix the COP21 Paris climate treaty if and when he becomes US president.
“I will be looking at that very, very seriously, and at a minimum I will be renegotiating those agreements, at a minimum. And at a maximum I may do something else,” Trump has told Reuters.
In further good news for the US economy, he has also assured his Twitter followers that he’s not remotely interested in introducing a carbon tax either.
This was in response to claims by one of his energy advisers – Rep Kevin Kramer of North Dakota, an avowed climate skeptic – that a small carbon tax might make sense as a vacuous political gesture for the mob.
“He can do all that if he wants,” Cramer said of Trump’s climate position, according toReuters . “But my advice would be, while I’m a skeptic, as well, he is a product of political populism, and political populism believes that there needs [to be] some addressing of climate change.”
Trump is having none of it. He has long made it perfectly clear exactly what he thinks about ‘global warming.’
The last one, he claimed on Fox and Friends, was a joke. Before going on to double down by suggesting, no actually, that he meant every word.
“I think that climate change is just a very, very expensive form of tax. A lot of people are making a lot of money. I know much about climate change,” Trump said. “I’ve received many environmental awards. And I often joke that this is done for the benefit of China — obviously I joke — but this done for the benefit of China.”
He added: “Because China does not do anything to help climate change. They burn everything you can burn. They couldn’t care less. Their standards are nothing. But in the meantime, they can undercut us on price. So it’s very hard on our business.”
If Trump does stick to his guns on climate change as US president, then the damage it will do to the climatist religion is almost incalculable. Global warming is the most expensive scam in world history, costing the global economy an annual $1.5 trillion.
If a significant chunk of those wasted resources were to be diverted to more productive sectors of the economy, the disruption would be enormous – hugely profitable to those in currently penalized sectors like fossil fuel and heavy industry, agonizingly painful to those crony-capitalist businesses (especially those in the so-called “clean energy” sector) which depend for their existence on handouts from the taxpayer.
Hence the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the usual suspects:
“Trump’s denunciation of the Paris climate accord is not only short sighted, but would be terribly costly for America and our ability to lead the world. We cannot go backwards on this important step towards a clean energy economy that benefits all our families,” billionaire environmental financier Tom Steyer said in a statement.
When you’re taking flak it means you’re over the target.
Wherever you stand on any of Trump’s other proposed policies, his stance on climate change is sensible, courageous, well-informed and, perhaps best of all, absolutely guaranteed to annoy the hell out of all the people in the world who most deserve to be annoyed.