More Americans see ‘imminent’ threat:

A growing percentage of Americans see climate change as an “imminent” threat driven mainly by human activity, and more than two-thirds want Washington to work with other nations to combat it, according to a Reuters/ Ipsos poll released on Thursday.

The public concern over global warming in the United States clashes with President Donald Trump’s policies aimed at maximizing fossil fuels production and dismantling climate protections he views as too onerous and costly for industry.

Trump last year announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, an accord to curb global warming struck by nearly 200 nations in 2015 that he said would kill American jobs and have no tangible environmental benefit.

Delegates from over 130 countries are now meeting in the Polish city of Katowice to write a rulebook for the deal and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday warned failure to reach an agreement would be suicidal.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll, taken from Nov 29 to Dec 10, found that 35 percent of US adults now see global warming as an “imminent” threat, up from 32 percent in 2017 and 24 percent in 2015.