Trump And Climate Change: "Planet Is Both Cooling And Heating"

Donald Trump sat down with the British broadcaster Piers Morgan on Friday night to answer his wide-ranging questions, including on climate change.

Mr Morgan: Do you believe in climate change? Do you think it exists?

Mr Trump: There is a cooling and there is a heating, and I mean, look: It used to not be climate change. It used to be global warming.

Mr Morgan: Right.

Mr Trump: Right? That wasn’t working too well, because it was getting too cold all over the place. The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records, O.K., they’re at a record level.

Repeating phrases such as "horrible", "terrible", and "unfair for the United States", Trump cited clean air and water as his highest environmental priorities. His administration has sought to roll back more than 60 environmental rules, and many of those reversals have the potential to substantially degrade the quality of air and water.

Trump repeatedly expressed that he saw the Paris Agreement as a "terrible deal" for the United States, stating "As usual, they took advantage of the United States." That said, the Paris agreement treated the United States no differently than other nations, and imposed no obligations on the United States to reduce greenhouse gases or to fund efforts by other nations to do the same. The pledges were voluntary and non-binding, the New York Times wrote.

Climate change deniers have long used the argument of "There's cooling and there's heating, hence global warming cannot be happening." However, the scientific community would regard the planet's "cooling and heating" as an awfully inaccurate objection to the fact that climate change is happening.