Trump: ‘I don’t believe’ climate report finding
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday rejected a central conclusion of a dire report on the economic costs of climate change released by his own administration.
But economists said the National Climate Assessment’s warning of hundreds of billions of dollars a year in global warming costs is pretty much on the money.
Just look at last year with Hurricanes Harvey, Maria and Irma, they said. Those three 2017 storms caused at least $265 billion in damage, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The climate report, quietly unveiled Friday, warned that natural disasters are worsening in the United States because of global warming. The report noted the last few years have smashed U.S. records for damaging weather, costing nearly $400 billion since 2015.
The president said he read some of the report, “and it’s fine,” but not the part about the devastating economic impact.
“I don’t believe it,” Trump said, adding that if “every other place on Earth is dirty, that’s not so good.”
“We’re already there,” said Wesleyan University economist Gary Yohe, who was a reviewer of the national report, which was produced by 13 federal agencies and outside scientists.
Yohe said, “It is devastating at particular locations, but for the entire country? No.”
Economist Ray Kopp, a vice president at the think tank Resources For the Future and who wasn’t part of the assessment, said the economics and science in the report were absolutely credible.
“I believe this is going to be a devastating loss without any other action-taking place,” Kopp said.