The US President-elect said on Tuesday that he was willing to keep an open mind on climate change and whether he would pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump insisted that he would pull out of the international Paris accord and worried environmentalists after tweeting that climate change is a “hoax”.
Mr Trump told Fox News earlier this year: “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 a lot about climate change….I’ve received environmental awards.”
In complete contrast to previous statements, Trump told the New York Times on Tuesday that there may be “some connectivity” between human activity and climate change, despite previously denying the phenomena.
Asked whether the President would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, Trump said: : “I’m looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it.” However, he also said that business was his priority and he would react to climate change issues accordingly to see “how much it will cost our companies”.
Jamie Henn, a spokesman for 350.org, an environmental group said: “The disaster that Donald Trump represents for the climate cannot be understated. He is the only head of state in the world who is an all-out climate denier and he has the most radical, anti-environmental policies of anyone to ever assume the role of the presidency.”
This isn’t the first promise that the future President has wavered on since the election.
Trump has since said that instead of a wall, he might build a fence accross the US-Mexican border, tweaking one of his signature campaign promises.
In the same Tuesday interview, he also showed less enthusiasm for pressing investigations of his Democratic rival in the election, Hillary Clinton.
“I don’t want to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways,” he told reporters, editors and other newspaper officials at the Times headquarters in Manhattan.