The Competitive Enterprise Institute has released a video urging President Trump to keep his campaign promise and withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement.

It features a speech President Trump gave in May 2016 explaining exactly why he wanted to pull out:

“This agreement gives foreign bureaucrats control over our energy and how much we use right here in America. No way!”

He adds:

“We’re going to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of the United States’ tax dollars to UN global warming programs”.

The video concludes:

Mr President. Don’t listen to the Swamp. Keep your promise. Withdraw from the Paris climate treaty. Send it to the Senate.

Now, however, he appears to be having second thoughts. His administration is reportedly divided on the issue, with White House insiders including Jared Kushner and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arguing for the U.S. to remain inside the UN Paris agreement, supposedly in order to keep a “seat at the table.”

That would make it more expensive than a solid gold, diamond-encrusted seat at the table of King Croesus then. In fact, it would make it – at $65 trillion – the most expensive seat at the table in the history of the world.

And the $65 trillion, by the way, is a conservative estimate. This – according to calculations by Bjorn Lomborg – is the lower end estimate of how much it would cost the world if all the signatories of the Paris climate agreement stuck to their CO2 reduction commitments.

First, Bjorn Lomborg, accepting climate-change advocates’ assumptions about how much warming comes from carbon dioxide, showed in a peer-reviewed study that implementing all provisions of all signers to Paris would prevent only 0.306 degrees Fahrenheit of global warming by 2100.

What would it cost? Unofficial estimates by the United States, European Union, Mexico and China amount to $739-$757 billion per year.

Those parties account for about 80 percent of signatories’ emissions reduction pledges. Other pledges would have similar costs per unit, implying something in the range of $185-$189 billion.

All told, $924-$946 billion. Per year. Every year from 2030 to the end of the century. “And that’s if the politicians do everything right. If not, the real cost could double,” Mr. Lomborg said.

So, for $65-$132 trillion, we might — if the alarmists are right — reduce global average temperature by a third of one degree by 2100. That’s $212-$431 billion per thousandth of a degree of cooling.

But if you think things just couldn’t any more stupid, wait till you hear what the effect of pouring all that money down the drain on futile carbon-dioxide reductions schemes will have on the state of the Earth’s climate.

Here is what a peer-reviewed study by Bjorn Lomborg says.

It will, by 2030, reduce “global warming” by the almost immeasurable 0.048 degrees C.

And by the end of the century, it will reduce “global warming” by 0.17 degrees C.

This, of course, depends on the heroic assumption that all the signatories to the Paris agreement stick to their carbon dioxide emissions targets. Which they won’t a) because the targets aren’t legally binding or in any way enforceable and b) many countries – including the biggest polluter China – just don’t give a damn anyway: as far as they’re concerned, these UN climate targets are just a handy way of shackling idiot Western nations with regulations and maybe grabbing a bit of Western guilt-baksheesh.

Which very much suggests that President Trump’s first instincts were right: there is no logical reason as to why the US should pay even lip service to this ludicrous climate agreement – signed off by President Obama in the dog days of his failing administration, without Congressional approval.

That he is wavering on the issue now can, therefore, clearly not be excused as the hesitancy of a man who has studied the evidence more closely and been persuaded that to remain in the Paris agreement is the rational course of action.

Rather, it is further depressing evidence that President Trump is being got at by members of his inner circle who would prefer him to maintain the establishment status quo – however wrongheaded and counterproductive – than to fulfil his promise to drain the swamp.

When this administration finally makes its decision on this issue – it was due on Tuesday but the meeting was cancelled because the president had other appointments – we will be closer to answering one of the great questions of our time: who is going to win the battle for the soul of Trump presidency – the people or the swamp?