In 2009, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and his three adult children joined dozens of other business leaders in signing a letter to President Barack Obama and the U. S. Congress calling for the passage of “meaningful” climate change legislation and for strong leadership at the U.N. climate change conference held in Copenhagen that year.
“As business leaders we are optimistic that President Obama is attending Copenhagen with emissions targets,” the 2009 letter, run as a full-page ad in the New York Times, stated.
“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,” the letter read. “Please allow us, the United States of America, to serve in modeling the change necessary to protect humanity and our planet.”
In a position starkly contrasted from the tone Trump struck in his energy speech in Bismark, ND last month, the letter highlighted “the key role that American innovation and leadership play in stimulating the worldwide economy.”
“Investing in a Clean Energy Economy will drive state-of-the-art technologies that will spur economic growth, create new energy jobs, and increase our energy security all while reducing the harmful emissions that are putting our planet at risk,” the letter stated.
The ad was uncovered Wednesday by environmental reporters for Grist.
Trump’s climate change position had already come under scrutiny given the contrast between his frequent comment that he “isn’t a big believer” in climate change and the application filed by an Ireland golf course he owns requesting a two-mile long seawall to protect against “rising sea levels and increased storm frequency and wave energy associated with global warming.”