Backlash against Trump’s climate change policy grows
PRESIDENT Trump has moved on from one disaster to another controversy: And yet again, people aren’t happy.
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump is facing more backlash after a frustrating couple of months on the job.
The new executive order seeks to suspend, rescind or flag for review more than a half-dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production in the form of fossil fuels.
Gina McCarthy, former EPA administrator under the Obama administration, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that President Trump’s executive order on climate “sends a horrible signal”.
“Let me just give you a little dose of reality about this executive order. It is embarrassing,” she said.
“As somebody who has represented this country internationally, it sends a horrible signal.
“Despite what this executive order says, the clean energy train in the US has left the station, and it’s not going to return.”
As part of the roll back, Mr Trump will initiate a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants.
The regulation, which was the former president’s signature effort to curb carbon emissions, has been the subject of long-running legal challenges by Republican-led states and those who profit from burning oil, coal and gas.
Just as former President Mr Obama’s climate efforts were often stymied by legal challenges, environmental groups are promising to fight Mr Trump’s pro-fossil fuel agenda in court.
Ms McCarthy said 70 per cent of Americans had accepted climate change is “happening”.
Democrat congressman Jim McGovern described Trump as a “danger to our planet and threat to our culture”.
And it’s not only politicians who are angry.
#GreatBarrierReef is dead because of warming oceans, & #Trump rolls back climate change regulations. Short-sighted. Dim witted. PLAIN EVIL.
— Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) March 29, 2017
Singer Grimes described Trump as simply “old and rich” while actress Bette Midler described him as “shortsighted, dimwitted and plain evil”.
Billion dollar companies like Nestle and General Mills in the US have also vowed to fight against President Trump.
A spokesman for Nestle told Buzzfeed it will “actively contribute to industry efforts and dialogue on this important topic, while strengthening our public commitments along our value chain and driving industry efforts on climate change.
“Our company’s success ultimately depends on our ability to reliably source high-quality crops and other raw materials.”
It comes as Arctic researcher Victoria Hermann accused Trump of deleting data critical to the Arctic.
Ms Hermann told the Guardian, “I frantically combed the internet for archived versions of our country’s most important polar policies.
“Since January, the surge has transformed into a slow, incessant march of deleting datasets, web pages and policies about the Arctic.”
Mr Trump is fast learning that being President is not all it seems.
He’s struggled to enact most of his key policies announced to date, finding his administration fighting battles in court.
His administration’s travel ban temporarily prevented travel of immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries to the United States.
It was halted when a Seattle judge slapped a temporary restraining order on the executive order, which was upheld by a higher court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Meanwhile, Trump faced criticism after the chairman of a US congressional committee on intelligence declared he has seen “no evidence” that President Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia during the run-up to the 2016 election.
Trump's reckless reversal of Obama #ClimateChange policies makes him a danger to our planet & threat to our future. https://t.co/fK5zJL8q5Y
— Jim McGovern (@RepMcGovern) March 28, 2017
How can Trump be so stupid and selfish as to risk millions of lives by scrapping the US Climate change policies? I despair.
— Michael Fish (@fish4weather) March 28, 2017
President Trump just threw away a plan to combat climate change & protect the air we breathe. Three words of advice: rescind it now.
— Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) March 28, 2017
Trump has signed orders killing all of Obama's climate change regulations. The EPA is prohibited henceforth from focusing on climate change.
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) March 28, 2017
denying climate change is not a luxury humanity can afford. trump is old& rich. he will never have 2 worry abt food/ shelter/ water https://t.co/7Oa4KBNcrC
— Grimes (@Grimezsz) March 28, 2017
What pisses me off is that it took years, decades, really, to position the US to take the lead on climate change. And Trump flushes it away.
— Tim Akimoff (@timakimoff) March 29, 2017
— Additional reporting by the News Corp Australia Network
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