CLIMATE CHANGE/ECONOMY/GARY COHN/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser is expected to outline the administration’s proposals to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions while restating that its stance on the Paris climate accord has not changed, White House officials said, following signals over the weekend that the U.S. was exploring ways to remain in the 2015 pact.
White House economic chief Gary Cohn’s planned breakfast discussion on energy and climate matters in New York follows a similar meeting led by Canada, China and the European Union in Montreal on Saturday [9-16-17], when U.S. officials broached revising Washington’s goals under the Paris accord to avoid pulling out of it, according to officials at the event.
Mr. Cohn, who is leading the White House’s stance toward the 197-party accord, is set to discuss how the U.S. can continue to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions without sacrificing its re-emergence as a leading energy producer, according to a White House official. The initiative to hold an informal meeting in New York materialized shortly before the Montreal event, according to an invitation letter from Mr. Cohn, and it was interpreted by some U.S. partners as a harbinger of a policy shift.
Trump administration officials on Sunday confirmed the president remained open to revising U.S. commitments under the Paris accord rather than quitting the pact.
The White House has said such a position isn’t a shift: Mr. Trump said in June that the U.S. would withdraw from the pact ‘but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris accord or an…entirely new transaction, on terms that are fair to the United States.’
But Mr. Trump has repeatedly boasted of withdrawing from what he has called a ‘job-killing’ deal and hasn’t emphasized revising the country’s participation in the pact.”
-Emre Peker, Nick Timiraos, and Russell Gold, “Trump Administration to Brief Officials on Emissions Goals,” The Wall Street Journal online, Sept. 17, 2017 09:58pm