Hello and welcome to this MLEX podcast. If you're listening to us, it means that you are

indeed familiar with the best of MLEX series which this podcast is associated with. My name is

James Panicki. I'm Mlex's Brussels managing editor and I'm coming to you from the Mlex office,

just a stone's throw away from the European institutions here in the Belgian capital.

We're recording this podcast on the week of the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States of America.

Journalists across MLEX's services in all of our bureaus, that's bureaus with an ex,

have been grappling with the election of Trump and what it means for their

policy areas. And our energy reporters are certainly no exception. Laurel Henning is a senior

energy correspondent and recently penned a very fine piece of analysis on what Trump's threats to

abandon UN climate agreements could mean for the EU and indeed the world.

Hello, Laurel.

Hi, James.

Now, firstly, what has Trump had to say about climate change and about the UN International Climate Accord before his election and since his election?

So climate change, much like many topics that Donald Trump has lent his opinion to, is an area where he's just certainly not minted his words.

Via his favourite social media platform Twitter, Donald Trump has called climate change bullshit in the past and a hoax invented by the Chinese.

That's a literal quote of what he said we should emphasize. Indeed. Thanks for

saying that. And that's something that he then went on to deny during one of the presidential

debates when he was debating with Hillary Clinton. So this is something that he changes his mind on

once, twice, three times. He just keeps going back and

forth whenever it suits him, really. And that is obviously a problem for those who are trying to

work out what to expect from the new administration. But what kind of impact could his comments

or could these political plans of his have on the renewable energy industry?

...