Trump asked for ‘meaningful’ climate change policy in 2009

Donald Trump signed on to an open letter in 2009 asking President Obama and Congress to enact aggressive climate change legislation and greenhouse gas emissions limits.

The letter, reported on by Grist Wednesday, was published as an advertisement in The New York Times shortly before the climate change conference in Copenhagen.

{mosads}It’s an urgent push for the exact opposite policies that Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has endorsed throughout his campaign.

“As business leaders we are optimistic that President Obama is attending Copenhagen with emissions targets,” the 2009 letter states.

“We support your effort to ensure meaningful and effective measures to control climate change, an immediate challenge facing the United States and the world today,” it continues. “Please allow us, the United States of America, to serve in modeling the change necessary to protect humanity and our planet.”

The letter states that the clean energy demand from climate action “will spur economic growth” and “create new energy jobs.”

It was signed by dozens of business executives, including Trump and his adult children Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka.

In his presidential run, Trump has said he is “not a big believer in man-made climate change.” He’s pledged to repeal Obama’s actions and regulations to reduce greenhouse gases and to pull the United States out of the Paris climate change agreement — the result of the 2009 talks in Copenhagen.

It isn’t the first time Trump has been found to have an inconsistent history on climate change.

Politico reported last month that his company applied to build a seawall at a golf club in Ireland, citing rising sea levels from climate change as the main reason it is necessary.

He also sent a $5,000 donation in 2014 to Save Our Winters, a climate advocacy group, according to the New York Daily News.