Trump keeping 'open mind' on pulling out of climate accord

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Trump told the New York Times in an interview that he thinks there is "some connectivity" between human activity and global warming, despite previously describing climate change as a hoax.

A source on Trump's transition team told Reuters earlier this month that the New York businessman was seeking quick ways to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement to combat climate change.

Donald Trump listens as  Hillary Clinton answers a question from the audience during their presidential town hall debate in Missouri, U.S., October 9, 2016. (Photo: Reuters)

But asked on Tuesday whether the United States would withdraw from the accord, the Republican said: “I’m looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it."

A U.S. withdrawal from the pact, agreed to by almost 200 countries, would set back international efforts to limit rising temperatures that have been linked to the extinctions of animals and plants, heat waves, floods and rising sea levels. .

Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, also said he was thinking about climate change and American competitiveness and "how much it will cost our companies,” he said, according to a tweet by a Times reporter in the interview.

Two people advising Trump’s transition team on energy and environment issues said they were caught off guard by his remarks.

A shift on global warming is the latest sign Trump might be backing away from some of his campaign rhetoric as life in the Oval Office approaches.

Trump has said he might have to build a fence, rather than a wall, in some areas of the U.S.-Mexican border to stop illegal immigration, tweaking one of his signature campaign promises.

Also in Tuesday's interview, he showed little appetite for pressing investigations of his Democratic rival in the presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton.

“I don’t want to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways," he told reporters, editors and other newspaper officials at the Times headquarters in Manhattan.