How Donald Trump blusters his way out of climate responsibilities

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has recently predicted that during the 2040-2059 period, Bangladesh will lose 36.49 percent of its GDP per capita due to climate change. 

The ADB predictions of such economic damages have been published at a time when Australia is burning from bushfires, where at least half a billion animals were killed, and it was only last year that Amazon forest was devastated by a massive wildfire. These were all due to climate change.

The climate scientists have long been warning of drastic consequences of climate change. Now in consideration of climate-driven disasters, it is believed that the consequences of climate change are already here. 

Is the world ready to tackle climate change? With climate sceptic like Donald Trump being the president of the US, the answer to such questions is No, apparently. 

When the world is being taken over by a series of climate disasters, Donald Trump – the president of US, which is one of the top countries in terms of carbon emissions –  is apparently growing more climate sceptic each day. 

When Amazon burned, the world was critical of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. An unapologetic disbeliever in climate change, Bolsonaro ridiculed the world's empathy for Amazon and shamelessly cut jokes. In a similar expression of extreme apathy, when bushfires was burning Australia, the country's Prime Minister Scott Morrison – who has long been accused of supporting giant fossil fuel-based corporations – was dismissive of climate concerns while on a trip to Hawaii.

In stark contrast to the world's critical stance against such leaders, US President Donald Trump has developed a habit of praising them because he himself believes that climate change is a hoax. "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive," Donald Trump tweeted way back in 2012. 

Interestingly though, President Trump's claim to knowledge knows no bound – he still believes that he knows "much about climate change." According to President Trump, "the climate change is just a very, very expensive form of tax. A lot of people are making a lot of money." He told the NBC's Meet the Press that he deserved environmental awards – may be for his denial of climate change. 

As anticipated, since taking the office as president of the US, President Trump has consistently been gutting climate change regulations. 

Donald Trump's latest such step included the overhauling a landmark law requiring environmental assessments on January 9, 2020. As per the laws of the National Environmental Policy Act rules (NEPA), the US federal agencies were required to assess the environmental impacts during constructing mines, highways, gas pipelines, etc. 

But President Trump dubbed the NEPA regulations as "endless delays" and a "waste of money". So, his climate cynic administration has made "fixing this regulatory nightmare a top priority."  

After Donald Trump announced the overhauling of NEPA, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement that the president's "action is nothing more than an attempt to write Donald Trump's climate denial into official government policy." 

But NEPA announcement is actually not the first time that Trump's climate denial impacted the official government policy of the US. There are myriads of climate sceptic policies that Trump Administration adopted over the last few years. 

In 2018, Donald Trump sought to weaken fuel economy standards that "could substantially roll back the Obama-era standards," according to a report published in The New York Times. If the plan goes in effect, it would "roll back greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy rules for cars," a report published by CNN reads. 

Donald Trump loves to repeal any laws and regulations that Barack Obama adopted and any rule which is climate-friendly. In his signature move, Donald Trump replaced the Obama era's Clean Power Plan – which placed flexible limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants – with the Affordable Clean Energy rule. 

Donald Trump's Affordable Energy rule allows US states to fix their own emissions standards for coal-based power plants which – according to an analysis of the United States Environmental Protection Agency – could cost 1,400 premature deaths by 2030. 

While the climate scientists emphasise on keeping fossil fuels in the grounds in a bid to tackle the adversities of climate change, President Trump has opened up lands and offshore to oil and gas drilling. 

Thanks to the Trump Administration, a disbeliever in climate change, the oil and gas companies no longer need to monitor to inspect methane leaks from new wells, tanks and pipelines. President Trump also delayed to send the treaty on hydrofluorocarbons to the senate for ratification.  

It was only during the US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement when the world came to know about President Trump turning his climate denial into an official government policy. But withdrawing the US from the Paris agreement has not been the only instance of Trump's climate scepticism. Donald Trump's climate denial has been continuous and persistent from the beginning. 

Despite such dark impacts and examples of climate change that complicate lives and economies of countries like Bangladesh – which annually produces only 0.25 percent (92 tonnes) of total global carbon emissions – Donald Trump continues to ignore climate change the way Roman ruler Nero said to have fiddled while Rome burned. 

Critical of such actions of Donald Trump, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said, "Communities across the country are already feeling the effects of climate change, but rather than protecting them, Trump is pulling out all the stops to silence their voices and further prop up his corporate polluter friends."