Q&A: In New Hampshire, Nikki Haley Touts Her Role as UN Ambassador in Pulling the US Out of the Paris Climate Accord

"Q&A: In New Hampshire, Nikki Haley Touts Her Role as UN Ambassador in Pulling the US Out of the Paris Climate Accord" originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment.

Some key quotes from the article, click link at bottom to read in full:

PHIL McKENNA: So, Nikki Haley is set apart from many of her fellow Republicans by acknowledging that climate change is real and caused by human activity. But her proposals to reduce emissions would actually do little to address the climate crisis.

DOERING: Oh? In what ways?

McKENNA: Well, she supports carbon capture and sequestration and planting trees, but doesn’t want the U.S. to curb the use of fossil fuels. And climate experts say that’s really key if we’re going to cut greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.

McKENNA: This was at the Saddle Up Saloon in Kingston, New Hampshire, and it was packed, standing room only. When she spoke to the crowd, she focused on her tenure as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration.

At one point, when listing her accomplishments in that role, she boasted about pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement:

HALEY: “When I got to the U.N., I wanted countries to know what America was for and what America was against. I didn’t care if they didn’t like me, but I wanted them to respect America. And we got to work. We pulled ourselves out of the Paris Climate Agreement.”

McKENNA: In fact, many of her remarks on climate and energy revolved around foreign policy:

HALEY: “And there were two things, when I was at the United Nations, that Russia, China, and Iran never wanted us to have. They never wanted us to have a strong military, and they never wanted us to be energy independent. We won’t be energy independent, we will be energy dominant. We will get the EPA out of the way. Right now they care more about sagebrush lizards than they do whether we can afford our utility bill. We will speed up the permitting process, we’ll get our pipelines going, we’ll do the Keystone pipeline, we’ll export as much liquefied natural gas as we can. And we will make sure that we don’t just have enough energy to survive. We’ll make sure we turn our energy sector into an economic powerhouse. Let’s export it out!”

BELTRAN: Sounds a lot like a “drill, baby drill!” kind of message.