Trump says US could stay in Paris climate accord

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - President Donald Trump said Wednesday the U.S. "could conceivably go back" to an historic international agreement aimed at curbing the world's carbon emissions.

"The Paris Agreement as drawn, and as we signed, was very unfair to the United States," Trump said at the White House during a joint press conference with Norwegian Premier Erna Solberg.

"It put great penalties on us. It made it very difficult for us to deal in terms of business. It took away a lot of our asset values."

Trump said he was pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement last year, shortly after assuming the presidency. But he will have to wait until 2019 to formally notify the United Nations of a U.S. exit under the agreement's regulations.

Trump did not elaborate on what would have to change in order for him to keep the U.S. in the fold.

The U.S. pledged to reduce its carbon emissions between 26 and 28 percent by 2025 under the agreement, and Trump has consistently said it is a "bad deal" for Washington.

Trump maintained Wednesday he has "no problem" with the accord, but said he had a problem with the agreement as signed.

"It treated the United States very unfairly," he said. "We are very strong on the environment. I feel very strongly about the environment."

Under Trump, the U.S. has made successive roll-backs on environmental protections, scrapping the Clean Power Plan, which sought to inch the U.S. away from its use of coal-burning energy, and opening previously protected lands up to mineral exploration.