President Trump went on a rant against climate change at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, calling it the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and saying that the scientific consensus on global warming was created by “stupid people.” He also berated countries, including close allies of the United States, for adopting renewable energy.
It added up to an extraordinary diatribe that ignored the human suffering exacted by the heat waves, wildfires and deadly floods that are aggravated by the burning of fossil fuels and, at the same time, stood at odds with the rapid expansion of renewable energy all over the world.
He chose his two targets, demonizing immigrants and green energy, and called them a “double-tailed monster” that he claimed, without evidence, are “destroying” Europe. Both subjects play well to his base in the Republican Party. But it was remarkable that he said all this to a global audience.
“You need strong borders and traditional energy sources if you’re going to be great again,” he said. “I worry about Europe, I love the people of Europe. I hate to see it being devastated by energy and immigration.”
His attacks on clean energy appear to be part of an effort by the White House to derail European Union’s legally binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and stoke a political backlash against Europe’s clean energy advances.
Wind and solar power are generally among the cheapest forms of energy in much of the world, according to independent energy analysts, and global investments in renewables exceed investments in coal, oil and gas.
“Trump continues to embarrass the U.S. on the global stage and undermine the interests of Americans at home,” Gina McCarthy, who served as the United States climate policy director in the Biden administration, said in a statement. “He’s rejecting our government’s responsibility to protect Americans from the increasingly intense and frequent disasters linked to climate change that unleash havoc on our country.”
Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, defended Mr. Trump’s comments and said in a written statement, “Whether it’s called global cooling, global warming, or climate change, the radical climate agenda continues to destroy many great countries around the world.”
On his first day in office, Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, a voluntary pact among nearly 200 nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is the only country to have done so. His administration also has thwarted renewable energy projects, stripped federal incentives for wind and solar power and removed climate-science data from government websites. It has also commissioned a report downplaying the consequences of climate change.
European lawmakers see the expansion of clean energy as a way to ensure energy security and not rely on the imports of oil and gas. Mr. Trump, on the other hand, has urged Europeans to buy more U.S. oil and gas. The administration has received a pledge from the European Union to buy $250 billion in U.S. energy every year through the rest of the president’s term in exchange for some relief from tariffs.
The United States is already the world’s leading exporter of natural gas and the biggest producer of oil, and the Trump administration is encouraging new development. Mr. Trump has also signed executive orders to expand the burning and mining of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.
According to overwhelming scientific consensus, the burning of coal, oil and gas has raised the average global temperature by well over 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to the preindustrial era, and has exacerbated deadly heat, fires and floods.
He referred to global warming as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated” and upbraided world leaders for sticking to an international agreement to limit global temperature rise and transition away from fossil fuels. The moment was all the more remarkable because the United States is responsible for the largest share of global emissions since the Industrial Revolution.
“I’ve been right about everything and I’m telling you that if you don’t get away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail,” he said.
Mr. Trump assailed environmentalists for wanting to “kill all the cows,” a claim for which there is no evidence. Cattle produce methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas, and for that and other reasons, some environmentalists have urged people to eat less meat.
The speech lasted 56 minutes, more than three times longer than the 15-minute limit on remarks by world leaders on the General Assembly podium. He criticized countries in Europe, including Britain, where he received a royal welcome last week, for expanding their renewable energy infrastructure.
Germany, he claimed, “was being led down a very sick path both on immigration by the way and energy.”
Jennifer Morgan, who has served as Germany’s climate change envoy, said European countries saw clean energy as a way to ensure their energy security and to expand their economies. To build a strong Europe, she said, it is necessary to “tackle climate change to avoid people having to leave their homes.”
One of Mr. Trump’s longer digressions involved the idea of “a carbon footprint,” the notion that individuals or groups, through their actions, produce varying amounts of greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide. He called it “a hoax made up by people with evil intentions.”
The term was popularized years ago by oil companies as part of a rebranding effort.