In this March 28, 2017, photo, President Donald Trump, accompanied by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt, third from left, and Vice President Mike Pence, right, signs an Energy Independence Executive Order at EPA headquarters in Washington. (AP File )

The landmark Paris climate pact was a bad deal for the US as it “front-loaded” its costs while India and China “back-loaded” theirs, causing a contraction in the American economy, the Trump administration has said.

“What Paris represents is bad deal for this country. We front-loaded our costs. China and India back-loaded theirs. That caused a contraction in our economy,” Scott Pruitt, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was quoted as saying by Fox News on Sunday.

“When you look at what happened in Paris, at the Paris agreement and Paris accord, China and India weren’t required to take any steps toward reduction of carbon di-oxide (CO2) until the year 2030,” Pruitt said.

“That discussion, to think that China and India are more committed to the CO2 reduction in this country I think is quite false,” Pruitt claimed.

“Because of the technology, we can burn coal in clean fashion. We shouldn’t have this commitment by the US government to say that fossil fuels are bad. Renewables are good. The US EPA and the US government should not pick winners and losers. That’s what happened in the last several years,” he said.

Pruitt asserted that fuel diversity is very important.
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