As so often, Trump is saying something that’s shocking to some, and politically incorrect — but unlike others, he isn’t just making things up. Hillary Clinton, for example, tweeted without evidence that Trump tried to “bury” the new National Climate Assessment (NCA), when he has no power to.
The Trump administration tried to bury a federally-mandated climate change study by releasing it the Friday after Thanksgiving. Here's what they didn't want you to hear:
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 26, 2018
The NCA report is issued by a research group (the U.S. Global Change Research Program) chartered by Congress back in 1990 to issue these reports. It didn’t come from a federal agency, from which Trump could have repressed its release.
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Trump, on the other hand, is merely saying he doesn’t believe the report (see video below). It’s not “his” report; it comes from an ostensibly independent source. That’s how it comes to be published without his stamp of approval it. Trump is saying he doesn’t believe it. Which some people may consider horrifying, but isn’t a lie.
Asked outside the White House about the findings that unchecked global warming would wreak havoc on the US economy, he said: “I don’t believe it.”
The report found that climate change will cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars annually and damage health.
The Trump administration has pursued a pro-fossil fuels agenda.
Trump took the occasion to point out that the U.S. has led the way in cutting carbon dioxide emissions. But he also spoke in terms that seem to be more about pollution than about carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring gas, as an accelerant of “climate change.”
He told reporters on Monday that he had “read some of” Friday’s report, which was compiled with help from US government agencies and departments.
Mr Trump said other countries must take measures to cut their emissions.
“You’re going to have to have China and Japan and all of Asia and all these other countries, you know, it [the report] addresses our country,” he said.
“Right now we’re at the cleanest we’ve ever been and that’s very important to me.”
Trump’s opinion on the report will have an effect on public perceptions, which no doubt angers his critics. The impact of Trump’s opinion is probably not nearly as great, however, as the repeated failure of doomsday predictions about “global warming” or “climate change” to come true (e.g., here and here).
