Here Are 5 Lies Trump Told About The Environment In One 20-Minute Speech
Donald Trump continues to greenwash his dismal environmental record ahead of the 2020 presidential election, most recently with a speech Tuesday in Florida touting his “environmental accomplishments.”
Trump seems to have forgotten he’s withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement, has relaxed restrictions on air pollution, has removed climate change from a list of national security threats and has said he doesn’t believe in global warming. In March, the Environmental Protection Agency finalised a rollback of a 2012 auto emissions regulation, and last month it opened up Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas drilling.
All told, Trump has pledged to reverse 100 environmental rules.
Here are some of his more galling claims from the speech ― and why they’re wrong:
1. Trump said presidential rival Joe Biden’s environmental plan would “give a free pass to the world’s worst foreign polluters, like China, Russia, India, and many others. They don’t have to clean up their lands, but we have to clean up ours.”
Biden’s environmental plan repeatedly calls out China and Russia, accusing China of gaming the system by becoming a “destination economy for polluters” and “outsourcing carbon pollution” by subsidising coal exports.
Under Trump, America has lost much of its climate credibility on the global stage, effectively giving foreign polluters exactly that “free pass” Trump claims to worry about. “China, Russia, India and many others” aren’t looking for guidance from the US climate denier in chief.
It’s worth noting that China is on track to meet its goals in the Paris Agreement ― the one the US is formally withdrawing from at Trump’s direction ― though it does remain the world’s biggest CO₂ emitter.
2. He claimed “we have the cleanest air we’ve ever had in this county, let’s say over the last 40 years because I assume 200 years ago it was probably better,” and that the US currently has...
