In a speech to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, President Trump made false or misleading statements regarding climate change, including calling it “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” a viewpoint that contradicts widely accepted scientific research. President Trump said that climate change predictions made by experts and organizations, including the UN, were “made… often for bad reasons, were wrong. They were made by stupid people.”
In the speech, President Trump also referred to coal as “clean, beautiful coal” and characterized technologies like wind power as a “joke” and “pathetic,” falsely claiming they don’t work and are more expensive. Studies have shown that solar and wind energy are increasingly becoming the cheapest and fastest options for electricity generation, and there is widespread scientific consensus that coal and other fossil fuels negatively impact human health and the environment.
President Trump's statements contradict and undermine the urgent calls from scientists and leaders, particularly from vulnerable nations, who emphasize the real and life-threatening impacts of climate change. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which comprises hundreds of climate experts and researchers, states that “[i]t is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.” In 2018, the first Trump administration declared that “[t]he impacts of global climate change are already being felt in the United States and are projected to intensify in the future.”