He began with immigration, now President Donald Trump has an even bigger global target ahead as the country prepares to shift its course on climate change.

According to Myron Ebell, head of President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team to his inauguration, the US will soon pull out of the Paris deal.

Mr. Donald Trump, a climate change skeptic, during his campaigns pledged to improve the US oil and gas drilling as well as coal mining sectors by slashing the current regulation.

The US president had earlier promised to pull his country out of the Paris Agreement which focuses on mitigating the effects of global warming.

Mr. Ebell noted that Mr. Trump was determined to undo most of the policies instituted by his predecessor, reported The Independent.

“I expect Donald Trump to be very assiduous in keeping his promises, despite all of the flak he is going to get from his opponents,” he remarked during a conference in London.

“He could do it by executive order tomorrow, or he could wait and do it as part of a larger package. There are multiple ways and I have no idea of the timing.”

Adopted by 194 countries last December, the Paris agreement came after the Kyoto Protocols.

Just two weeks after winning the US election, Mr. Trump promised to keep an “open mind” on matters to do with the climate deal.

The US president has previously labeled climate change as a hoax orchestrated by China, and on many occasions questioned the science around it.

Mr. Ebell, one of the experts who played a great role in guiding the EPA’s transition through to January 20 when president Donald Trump was sworn in following his election in November, felt it was too early to predict the outcome and timing of any action as most government departments were still in the transition process.

Mr. Ebell stands tall as the Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at Washington’s conservative think tank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Mr. Trump appointed Scott Pruitt, an Oklahoma Attorney General known to have led 14 lawsuits against the EPA, to be the agency’s administrator, even though a vote on his nomination is yet to be scheduled.

CUTTING COSTS

The latest news on Mr Trump’s impending plan to pull down the Paris climate deal comes at a time when the president’s former adviser warned he would see a significant drop in the agency’s nationwide workforce of about 15,000 employees if his move was to materialize.

Mr Ebell, whose role in the transition team came to an end last week, declined to give specific figures but added that slicing the agency’s size by almost half would be a great start.

“Let’s aim for half and see how it works out, and then maybe we’ll want to go further,” remarked Mr. Ebell, who has gone back to his previous position as the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The conservative think tank in Washington is against “global-warming alarmism” and is partially funded by specific individuals and corporations that hugely benefit from continuous burning of fossil fuels.

Mr. Ebell has previously been a vocal critic of federal environmental regulations, which he says are inhibiting the impending growth in the nation’s economy and jobs.

In just one week of Mr. Trump’s rule, the EPA has already experienced turbulence as members of the president’s transition team put a temporary freeze on all grant awards and contract approvals.

Mr. Trump’s representatives also introduced a media blackout, blatantly clamping down on social media posts, media releases, and any other external communications made by career staff.

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