Trump thinks that climate change is false news – except on his golf course

President Donald Trump has stated that he would not buy the national climate assessment of his own government detailing the devastating impact of climate change on the US economy when it comes to climate change. a question-and-answer session with journalists on Monday.

"I do not believe it," said Trump. "No, no, I do not think so. And here's the other thing: you're going to have China, Japan, Asia and all those other countries – you know, it's about our country. At the moment, we are at the cleanest of our history and it is very important to me. But if we are clean but all the other places are dirty, it's not so good. "

"So I want clean air, clean water, it's very important," he added.

But Trump has taken a very different attitude to the company he owns.

As Politico detailed during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump International Golf Links has sought to build a dike to protect a golf course that it owns in Ireland from "global warming and its effects".

In a permit application for the wall, Trump International Golf Links cited scientific studies indicating that a sea level rise could result in damaging erosion in a bay near the golf course.

"If predictions of sea level rise from global warming prove accurate … it is likely that coastal erosion rates will increase correspondingly not only in Doughmore Bay, but also on much of the Irish coastline, says the application. "In our opinion, it is reasonable to expect sea level rise to be twice that of the current one. … As a result, we expect the dune recession rate to increase. "

As Politico points out, Trump has even tried to raise awareness of the consequences of climate change in a brochure distributed to people living near the course.

Trump has warned not only the county council of the dangers of climate change, but also local residents. An appendix to TIGL's planning application includes a scan of a brochure that the company distributed to residents to justify the construction of the proposed shoreline protection works. The header of a page (bearing the "Trump Doonbeg" logo) is entitled "Need to protect the coastline". The page lists four points, the last of which is "The predicted rise in sea level and more frequent storms will increase the rate of erosion throughout the 21st century.

The Trump company was given permission to build the wall at the end of last year.

Trump is wrong – the United States is far behind the countries it accuses

The new national climate assessment concludes that "[w]With continued growth in emissions at historical rates, annual losses in some economic sectors are expected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century, more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many US states. "

The Trump administration released the document earlier than Friday after Thanksgiving, which has often been interpreted as an attempt to bury the results, indicating that the White House is not doing enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse.

In his comments on Monday, Trump did not dispute the findings of the assessment, but suggested that America can not do anything about climate change because of other countries, such as China and Japan will continue to be "dirty".

Trump's suggestion is based on a false premise, however. The Environmental Performance Index currently ranks the United States 27th in the world – seven places behind Japan.