News   /   Society   /   Editor's Choice

Trump says doesn't believe own government's climate warning

US President Donald Trump delivers remarks at a Make America Great Again rally in Biloxi, Mississippi, on November 26, 2018. (AFP photo)

US President Donald Trump has rejected his own government's report warning of massive economic losses and human casualties if carbon emissions continue to feed climate change unchecked.

According to the last week report of the National Climate Assessment, climate change is already affecting the United States and could cost the country “hundreds of billions of dollars” annually by 2050 “without substantial and sustained global mitigation."

Deadly wildfires, increasingly debilitating hurricanes and heat waves are among the destructive effects of climate change on the US, the report said.

"I don't believe it," Trump said at the White House on Monday, adding that the US would not take measures to reduce carbon emissions if other countries did not do that.

Trump, who has called climate change a Chinese “hoax,” said he had read "some" of the report and that it was "fine." However, he rejected the central warning of the study.

"No, no, I don't believe it," he repeated.

"You're going to have to have China and Japan and all of Asia and all of these other countries, you know. It addresses our country," he said.

"Right now, we're at the cleanest we've ever been. And that's very important to me. But if we're clean, but every other place on Earth is dirty, that's not so good. So I want clean air, I want clean water, very important,” he continued.

According to the latest edition of the National Climate Assessment, released on Friday, "with continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century -- more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many US states."

"Without substantial and sustained global mitigation and regional adaptation efforts, climate change is expected to cause growing losses to American infrastructure and property and impede the rate of economic growth over this century," it said.

Last year, Trump abandoned the Paris Climate Agreement, which calls for holding the ongoing rise in global average temperature to “well below 2 °C above preindustrial levels,” while “pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C.”

Last week, Trump again expressed his doubts about climate change, using the especially cold Thanksgiving forecast as an example.

"Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS - Whatever happened to Global Warming?" the president tweeted.


Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Press TV News Roku