As 19 of 20 world leaders pledged to fight climate change, President Trump remained the sole holdout. World leaders met in Buenos Aires for the G20 meeting to discuss, in part, trade agreements and the Paris Agreement.
The meeting came just a few days after President Trump sat down to an interview with the Washington Post. On the topic of climate change, Trump reasoned his disbelief of his own administration's climate report due to his "very high levels of intelligence."
This was in response to the 1,600 page National Climate Assessment, released on Black Friday detailing the federal governments most up to date analysis on the state of climate change in the United States. Over 300 federal and non-federal experts and 13 federal agencies contributed to the overall assessment.
From drought in the Colorado River to extreme rainfall in the Midwest and forest fires in California, the report identifies examples of how climate change is impacting everyday lives of Americans. The report focuses on how future climate change will impact communities and individuals, noting that the most vulnerable Americans will be most impacted.
While the report culminates the thinking of the best and brightest minds and agencies in the United States, Trump stands in opposition to the report. The entire exchange with the Washington Post is worth a read.
DAWSEY: You said yesterday when you were leaving that you were skeptical of a climate change report that the government had done. Can you just explain why you’re skeptical of that report?
TRUMP: One of the problems that a lot of people like myself — we have very high levels of intelligence, but we’re not necessarily such believers. You look at our air and our water, and it’s right now at a record clean. But when you look at China and you look at parts of Asia and when you look at South America, and when you look at many other places in this world, including Russia, including — just many other places — the air is incredibly dirty. And when you’re talking about an atmosphere, oceans are very small. And it blows over and it sails over. I mean, we take thousands of tons of garbage off our beaches all the time that comes over from Asia. It just flows right down the Pacific, it flows, and we say where does this come from. And it takes many people to start off with.
As Trump relies on his own "natural instinct" to disbelieve science, he made his opposition clear during the G20 meeting.
The G20 meeting ended with a statement from 19 of 20 G20 nations affirming their support for the Paris climate agreement. The United States was the only country in attendance that did not support the Paris Agreement, a stance Trump has held since 2017 when he declared his intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. The United States cannot formally withdraw from the agreement until November 5, 2020, when it goes into effect. Hence, much of Trump's talk of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement is hinged on his reelection.
COP24 climate conference began on December 3rd in Katowice, Poland as world leaders meet for the latest round of United Nations climate negotiations. The primary goal of the Paris Agreement is to keep global temperatures from rising higher than 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.
While Trump controls the White House, the United States will remain in opposition to the rest of the world in tackling "our greatest threat in thousands of years. Climate change." Sir David Attenborough said at the opening ceremony of COP24.
