London: The man who wrote the Trump administration's environment action plan says the environmental movement is "the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world" and said the United States was about to change course on climate policy, including withdrawal from the Paris agreement.
Myron Ebell, who led the Environmental Protection Agency transition for the new administration, said he gave the president three pathways for withdrawing from the 2015 Paris agreement on greenhouse gas emissions, at least one of which could be done "right now".
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| President Donald Trump has pledged to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. Photo: Bloomberg |
And he hinted at an end to emission standards for US vehicles, through abolishing the EPA's 'endangerment finding', which had given it powers to protect the public from the health threat posed by greenhouse gases.
Mr Ebell worked for Mr Trump's transition team delivering a detailed plan on how the president could deliver on his campaign promises.
Mr Ebell was in London as a guest of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a British think tank that promotes climate change scepticism. His role on Trump's transition team ended with the inauguration and he said he never met Mr Trump, but had taken his lead from his campaign promises.
"What the Trump transition did was to try to write departmental or agency plans to fulfil and implement every single one of the promises and commitments that Mr Trump made as a candidate," Mr Ebell said.
"There were a number of very clear, black and white promises. He said he will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, he will defund UN climate programs, at the EPA he will potentially withdraw or repeal all of the Obama administration rules regarding greenhouse gas emissions including the so-called Clean Power Plan.
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| Mr Ebell said the US would change course on climate policy. Photo: Reuters |
Mr Trump's pick for secretary of state Rex Tillerson told senators at his confirmation hearing in January that the risk of climate change did exist, and the US needed a "seat at the table" in international discussions.
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| Myron Ebell advised Mr Trump during the transition. Photo: AP |
"I don't think there's any doubt that (Mr Trump) thinks global warming is not a crisis. It does not require drastic and immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions."
He said there were three ways for the US to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. The first was to announce that president Obama's signature was withdrawn from Paris.
Another would be to announce that it was a treaty, not an agreement, and send it to the Senate for ratification "so it will be dead".
The third would be to withdraw from the framework convention itself – the 1992 international agreement to seek a global consensus on climate change mitigation.
"My personal viewpoint is by far the cleanest is to withdraw from the framework convention," Mr Ebell said. "I would say do it right now."
Mr Ebell said Mr Trump's election was a "rejection by the American people of what they are told by the bi-coastal urban elite (and) the chattering classes".
"The people of America have rejected the 'expert-ariat' and I think for good reason."
Though he conceded there was evidence for man-made climate change he did not believe climate science's consensus that it would have dangerous consequences for the planet.
He was dismissive of renewable energy and said Mr Trump would make the US the planet's biggest producer of oil and gas.
He said Mr Trump would end the capture of government by 'special interests'.
"Our special interest is freedom. The enemies of freedom come in many guises and one of the most insidious and dangerous in the modern world is the regulatory regime that we now suffer under.
"A large part of that is due to the environmental movement which in my view is the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world."
Mr Ebell said more than half the EPA's budget already went to state grants for infrastructure and clean-up projects.
"(Mr Trump's) interest is really that the EPA goes back to its core missions … I would expect that in terms of his desire to radically shrink the EPA's bureaucracy you may actually see more money going into state grants."
He said he hoped that the EPA's 'endangerment finding' under the Clean Air Act would be undone, which would lead to the scrapping of greenhouse gas emission rules.
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