Bob Inglis believes Donald Trump has to change his mind on climate change

Bob Inglis believes Donald Trump has to change his mind on climate change

DONALD Trump is set to change his stance on climate change, according to a former US Republican congressman.

Bob Inglis is no lefty activist or latte-drinking ‘trendy’.

He was a congressman who represented “the reddest district in the reddest state in the nation”, Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, for six years in the 1990s.

It was the same time Vice President Al Gore was warning against the impending crisis of global warming facing the planet.

Since then, Inglis has reversed his position on climate change after extensive briefings with scientists and founded a movement of conservatives lobbying for action on global warming from the right.

In a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra today — where he referenced meeting the unlikely hero of the marriage equality movement in Australia, former croc farmer and Coalition MP Warren Entsch — Mr Inglis said President Trump would be forced to change his mind on climate change.

“Donald Trump said that climate change is a Chinese hoax and conspiracy but he couldn’t possibly believe that,” Mr Inglis said.

“He was channelling the fears of fearful people; people worried about downward wage pressure ... people worried about surrendering prosperity without effect, with job leakage to higher emitting places, people trying to define themselves amid identity stripping globalisation and job stripping automation.

“Now there’s some chance that President Trump may respond to his daughter Ivanka’s interest in climate change.

“There’s a chance he may listen to secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who as recently as October 19, 2016 was advocating for the same revenue neutral carbon tax that we’re proposing at RepublicEn.org.

“That was in his role as the CEO of ExxonMobil, the worlds largest oil company.

“Now I realise that this shift for Donald Trump may sound improbable.

“But if it seems unlikely, how likely was it that a crocodile farmer would become a champion of marriage equality? How likely was it that Richard Nixon would open up China? How likely was it that Bill Clinton would sign the welfare reform bill, the welfare reform bill that we conservatives sent him after he vetoed it twice, he finally signed it. How likely was it that he would sign that?

“Reality is what will force Donald Trump to shift and amend the chants at his rallies.”

Mr Inglis, who founded the Energy and Enterprise Initiative in 2012 to promote conservative solutions to climate change, said President Trump could try to repeal President Obama’s actions on climate change but some efforts to address global warming in the US had already progressed too far.

His comments come amid reports President Trump will sign an order reversing Obama’s initiatives on carbon emissions from power plants, coal mining and government authority over bodies of water.

“The coal miners jobs aren’t coming back,” Mr Inglis said today.

“President Trump may repeal President Obama’s clean power plan but it’s going to be much harder to repeal the price on natural gas in America.

“That came from competitive pressures, that came from innovation.

“He won’t be able to repeal that.

“My hope is that the bushfire set by the Tea Party will burn itself out in the Oval Office.

“And perhaps it had to make its way all the way there in order to finally burn out.

“As it does, we’re going to discover in my country, and perhaps you’ll discover here, that pitchforks and torches are not good building tools.”

Mr Inglis is lobbying for a carbon tax in the US as a conservative measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull ruled out considering a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme for Australia late last year after Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg announced there would be a review of the government’s climate change and energy policies in 2017.