Former Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement means he “forfeited American leadership” on climate change.
“The president didn’t have to pull out,” Kerry said in remarks to a group of Democratic governors. “That was political. All he had to do was say: ‘I want to change the targets a little bit.’ Instead, he forfeited American leadership, he put at risk the momentum has been created and he said to the American people, ‘I’m buying into the denial hoax.'”
He said the climate deal is “not a real estate deal that transpired in a matter of days or weeks or even months.”
Kerry disputed Trump’s claim that the agreement was unfair to the U.S. “No burden was placed on the United States other than what we in United States defined for ourselves,” he said.
Kerry signed the Paris agreement on behalf of President Obama in 2016. Trump and several administration officials have reiterated that they want to try to negotiate a better deal for the country.
This week, Kerry compared climate change to a possible nuclear attack by North Korea during a climate change conference at Yale University. He said that while a nuclear weapon rightfully receives significant focus, “a silent killer that compounds its destructive power daily and threatens the lives of literally billions of people with increasing destructive force is ignored, and even mocked.”
