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Donald Trump’s views and words on climate change never left the spotlight for a day. Not because his stance on climate policies has been inspiring or visionary or anything on those lines, but because it’s been shifting, controversial, hilarious and dangerous. 

The 47th US President hasn’t just dismissed any talk or action on climate change and policies, he’s also detested it. Perhaps, the first infamous glimpse into his disregard for climate science was to be had in 2012, when he famously tweeted that climate change was a Chinese hoax to render US manufacturing ‘uncompetitive’. In the 2016 presidential campaign and debates that followed, he denied the statement though, calling it a joke.

 

Thereafter, the US President never held back from tossing his controversial opinions on the subject, almost considered a part of his signature hand gestures or hyperbolic language now. Last month, as the UN adopted a resolution supporting the international court’s climate ruling that says how countries have a legal obligation to address climate change, the US opposing the resolution did not come as a surprise. In fact, it was but expected and aligns with Trump’s outlook on climate change.

 

The UN-backed ICJ climate ruling was voted in favour by as many as 141 countries. As many as 28 countries abstained from voting, including India. Ironically and interestingly, the US—the world’s biggest historical emitter, was among the small group of nations opposing it, along with Saudi Arabia, Russia, Israel, Liberia, Yemen, Iran and Belarus. 

 

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This hasn’t been the first time Trump has, tooth and nail, opposed a climate action move. At the United Nations General Assembly last year, the world leaders received an unfiltered peep into Trump’s mind as he took to the mic, “This ‘climate change’, it’s the greatest con job ever perpetuated on the world in my opinion.” Not the one to hold back, he elaborated, “All of these predictions made by the UN and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong. They were made by stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes and given those same countries no chance for success. If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.” 

In 2020, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he called climate activists as the “perennial prophets of doom”, adding, “We must reject their predictions of the apocalypse.” Not one relying on climate activists or science for his opinions, Trump has in the past decade called out climate change, questioned global warming and denied funds for the environmental causes. “It’s late in July and it is really cold outside in New York, where the hell is global warming?” he tweeted in July 2014, unable to differentiate between climate and weather.

 

The initial set of tweets caused a scandal, before settling down to become a series of similar statements to follow. In fact, Trump’s claim became an annual tradition to kick off the cold winter season. 

An academic survey, studying data between November 2011 and October 2015, found that Trump spoke about weather, climate science and global warming in as many as 115 tweets. Out of these, roughly 40 posts were dedicated to denying the existence of global warming because it was cold outside. 

 

Million dollar worth of rollbacks on climate 

On the very day of taking charge of the Oval Office during his second term, Trump signed a flurry of executive orders, one of them being withdrawal of the US from the Paris Climate Agreement. While the decision has been his signature anti-climate move, it hasn’t been the most significant yet. During the course of the next few weeks and months, Trump initiated a series of climate rollbacks and displayed them as political wins.

 

In February this year, yet another landmark ruling that greenhouse gases endanger public health was revoked. The US’ federal agency Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tasked with protecting climate and health has seen draconian clamp downs and its budget slashed by more than half. 
Furthermore, Trump’s Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against California clean car rules that set limits on tailpipe pollution and specified car efficiency standards. 

 

Not the first time, not the last 

As the countries watch rising sea levels, unseasonal floods wash away their lands, crops and people, Trump repeatedly shrugs off climate science, international bodies and his responsibilities. He isn’t nearly done yet. In January of this year, he issued a Presidential Memorandum indicating that the US will be withdrawing from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as over 60 other international organizations and agreements, while calling them “wasteful, ineffective and even harmful.”

 

The announcement sparked a global dialogue on whether a sitting US president can unilaterally exit these agreements. But it did not elicit surprise, shock or even disbelief. So last month, when the US opposed a landmark ICJ ruling on the environment and the responsibilities of the nation, it did not spark any debate, let alone outrage. 

 

By Manpriya Singh