Trump’s Embarrassing UN Science Denial

Sounding more like a tipsy, dementia riddled barfly than the President of a great nation, Donald Trump once again humiliated the United States on a global stage with a series of insane, ungrounded bleets about climate and energy.

CNN:

Global warming and climate change: Trump called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” and he also referred to “the global warming hoax.” He didn’t precisely explain what he was calling the con job or hoax, but global warming is a demonstrated fact. Trump also baselessly suggested that scientists now use the phrase “climate change” instead of “global warming” so that they can’t be accused of getting things wrong if the world ends up cooling; in reality, climate scientists use both phrases, often saying “global warming” when referring to the long-term trend of increasing global temperature and “climate change” when referring to the numerous effects the world is experiencing because of that trend.

NASA says on its website: “‘Climate change’ encompasses global warming, but refers to the broader range of changes that are happening to our planet. These include rising sea levels; shrinking mountain glaciers; accelerating ice melt in Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic; and shifts in flower/plant blooming times.”

For example, a 2023 report from the UN’s climate change panel, titled “Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report,” said this: “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming, with global surface temperature reaching 1.1°C above 1850-1900 in 2011-2020.” In a section titled “Future Climate Change,” the report also said this: “Continued greenhouse gas emissions will lead to increasing global warming, with the best estimate of reaching 1.5°C in the near term in considered scenarios and modelled pathways. Every increment of global warming will intensify multiple and concurrent hazards (high confidence).”

China and wind power: Trump repeated his false claim that although China is the leading manufacturer of wind turbines, “they have very few wind farms” themselves. He added, “So why is it that they build them and they send them all over the world, but they barely use them? You know, they use coal, they use gas, they use almost anything, but they don’t like wind. But they sure as hell like selling the windmills.” In reality, China is the world leader in the generation of wind power and has massive wind farms onshoreand offshore; it continues to install additional wind capacitymuch faster than the US.

Coal and renewables: Trump referred to coal as “clean, beautiful coal,” as he usually does, but coal is just not clean; its use as a power source creates polluting emissions that harm humans and the environment, even with technological improvements that can reduce the emissions levels. Trump also wrongly said renewable energy sources “don’t work,” saying that “they’re not strong enough to fire up the plants that you need to make your country great” and that “the wind doesn’t blow.” But energy generated by wind is still a useful power source when the wind isn’t blowing, just as solar energy is still a useful power source when the sun isn’t shining — since the energy can be stored in industrial batteries or using other methods, allowing it to be deployed as part of a power mix along with energy from traditional fossil fuels.

The Paris climate accord: Trump repeated some false claims about the Paris climate accord from which he has withdrawn the US during each of his presidencies.

At one point, he wrongly said the US was “supposed to pay like $1 trillion” under the accord. It wasn’t. The US has never spent or committed anywhere close to $1 trillion in connection to the accord; Biden pledged upon taking office to pay $11.4 billion per year toward international climate financing, but Congress appropriated less than even that.

Trump also said, “China didn’t have to pay until 2030.” This was confusing, but it appeared to be a reference to his previous false claim that the accord gave China more time than the US to hit its targets for reducing carbon emissions. In reality, the accord cameinto effect for all participating countries at the same time, November 2016, but allowed each country to set its own voluntary targets for reducing carbon emissions. China picked 2030 as the year it planned to meet its primary targets while the US picked 2025, but this was simply a choice of each country.

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From the Wall Street Journal just a few days ago: