A former climate change adviser to Donald Trump has said the US President will pull America out of the landmark Paris agreement .
Mr Trump, who has previously called climate change a hoax invented by the Chinese, promised a raft of policies during his campaign including to undo Obama’s climate action plan and defund UN climate change work.
Myron Ebell, who took charge of Mr Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency EPA transition team, said the President was determined to undo policies pushed by Barack Obama to restrict greenhouse gas emissions.
He said the US would “clearly change its course on climate policy” under the new administration and claimed Mr Trump was “pretty clear that the problem or the crisis has been overblown and overstated”.
“I expect Donald Trump to be very assiduous in keeping his promises, despite all of the flack he is going to get from his opponents,” he told a briefing in London.
“He could do it by executive order , or he could wait and do it as part of a larger package. There are multiple ways and I have no idea of the timing.”
Mr Ebell, a long-standing climate sceptic, was employed by the Trump team last September to review the EPA and worked for the Republican billionaire until his inauguration on 20 January.
In November, two weeks after his election victory, Mr Trump said he had an “open mind” on the climate deal, which was drafted at the end of 2015 and signed on the 22 April 2016.
The agreement has 194 signatories, including the US.
