Featured Image Credit: Alex Wong/Getty
Topics: Donald Trump, Climate Change, Joe Biden
Joe Yates
President Donald Trump has been labeled 'embarrassing and foolish' for taking a 'shortsighted' approach to climate change that could have a dire impact on future generations.
Since 1992, the US has been a part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a treaty that lays the groundwork for nations to cooperate for the good of the planet, dealing with the ongoing climate crisis.
But in one simple swish of his presidential right hand, the 79-year-old has withdrawn America from the agreement 34 years in the making - isolating Washington from 65 other nations and organizations.
Trump has previously called climate change a 'scam' and a 'hoax'.
Advert
Now, Gina McCarthy, a former top climate advisor to Joe Biden, has blasted the Republican for tarnishing the US' reputation as a leader in the fight against global warming and jeopardising its safety against natural disasters.
“This is a shortsighted, embarrassing and foolish decision,” she said.
“As the only country in the world not a part of the UNFCCC treaty, the Trump administration is throwing away decades of US climate change leadership and global collaboration.
"This administration is forfeiting our country’s ability to influence trillions of dollars in investments, policies and decisions that would have advanced our economy and protected us from costly disasters wreaking havoc on our country.”
The reasoning for the Trump administration backing America out of the treaty, via an executive order signed yesterday (January 7), was explained by claiming the UNFCCC is 'contrary to the interests of the United States'.
Just before Christmas, on December 23, Trump posted an image on Truth Social of what he believed was a dead bald eagle that had been killed by a wind turbine in the US.
He captioned it: "Windmills are killing all of our beautiful Bald Eagles!"
The White House then re-posted it onto X, amplifying it to more than a million followers.
After online sleuths began looking into the photograph, it was determined that the 'bald eagle' in question was in fact a falcon - and it wasn't even killed in America.