GE CEO slams Trump over climate efforts

The CEO of General Electric Co. on Wednesday slammed President Trump’s executive order rolling back former President Obama’s climate change efforts in an internal memo, pledging his company will continue its efforts to combat climate change.

“Companies must be resilient and learn to adjust to political volatility all over the world,” Jeff Immelt wrote in the company blog post, according to Politico. ”Companies must have their own ‘foreign policy’ and create technology and solutions that address local needs for our customers and society.”

{mosads}Immelt stressed the importance of sticking with the Paris agreement, the landmark international climate deal reached in 2015 that Trump opposes.

“We believe climate change should be addressed on a global basis through multinational agreements, such as the Paris Agreement,” he wrote. “We hope that the United States continues to play a constructive role in furthering solutions to these challenges, and at GE, we will continue to lead with our technology and actions.”

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has criticized the climate accord, calling it a “bad deal.”

“You know, what was wrong with Paris was not just that it was, you know, failed to be treated as a treaty, but China and India, the largest producers of CO2 internationally, got away scot-free,” Pruitt said in a Sunday interview.

“They didn’t have to take steps until 2030. So we’ve penalized ourselves through lost jobs while China and India didn’t take steps to address the issue internationally,” he continued. “So Paris was just a bad deal, in my estimation.”