French president: Paris climate deal ‘will not be renegotiated’

French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated Tuesday that the Paris climate agreement “will not be renegotiated,” despite calls to do so from the Trump administration.

Macron during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly defended the 2015 climate accord, saying “we won’t go back” on the agreement.

The French president added that he “respects” Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the climate deal unless he can get a better deal.

Trump in June said he would pull the U.S. out of the deal, which envisions a 26 percent to 28 percent reduction in the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. He opened the door to redoing the deal, though many world leaders have rejected that proposal.

{mosads}

Macron is among the loudest critics of Trump’s decision. In the days following the announcement, he invited “engineers, entrepreneurs, responsible citizens who were disappointed by the decision of the president of the United States” to move to France and released a video fact-checking the Trump administration’s talking points on the Paris agreement.

The White House denied reports earlier this week that it would not pull out of the deal after all. Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic adviser, told foreign climate officials during a Monday meeting that the administration is still planning to withdraw from the agreement, something that cannot happen until 2020 at the earliest.

Trump did not discuss the Paris agreement or climate change during his speech to the General Assembly earlier on Tuesday.