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Some countries’ leaders are watching rising seas threaten to swallow their homes. Others are watching their citizens die in floods, hurricanes and heat waves, all exacerbated by climate change.<\/p>\n
But the world US President Donald Trump described in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday didn’t match the one many world leaders in the audience are contending with. Nor did it align with what scientists have long been observing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis \u2018climate change,\u2019 it\u2019s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion,” Trump said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong. They were made by stupid people that have cost their countries fortunes and given those same countries no chance for success. If you don\u2019t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has long been a critic of climate science and polices aimed at helping the world transition to green energies like wind and solar. His speech on Tuesday, however, was one of his most expansive to date. It included false statements and made connections between things that are not connected.<\/p>\n
Ilana Seid, an ambassador from the island nation of Palau and head of the organisation of small island states, was in the audience. She said it\u2019s what they\u2019ve come to expect from Trump and the United States. <\/p>\n
She added that not acting on climate change will \u201cbe a betrayal of the most vulnerable,” a sentiment echoed by Evans Davie Njewa of Malawi, who said that \u201cwe are endangering the lives of innocent people in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Adelle Thomas, a climate scientist who has published more than 40 studies and has a doctorate, climate change disasters are personal, too. <\/p>\n
A vice chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s top body on climate science, Thomas is from the Bahamas and said she experienced first-hand “the devastation of the climate disaster\u201d when Hurricane Sandy hit the Caribbean and New York City, the city Trump was speaking from, in 2012.<\/p>\n
\u201cMillions of people around the world can already testify to the devastation that climate change has brought to their lives,” she said. <\/p>\n
“The evidence is not abstract. It is lived, it is deadly, and it demands urgent action.”<\/p>\n
A look at some of Trump’s statements, the science behind them and the reaction.<\/p>\n
On renewable energy<\/p>\n
WHAT HE SAID:<\/strong> Trump called renewable sources of energy like wind power a \u201cjoke\u201d and \u201cpathetic,\u201d falsely claiming they don\u2019t work, are too expensive and too weak.<\/p>\n THE BACKSTORY:<\/strong> Solar and wind are now \u201calmost always\u201d the least expensive and the fastest options for new electricity generation, according to a July report from the United Nations<\/strong><\/a>. That report also said the world has passed a \u201cpositive tipping point\u201d where those energy sources will only continue to become more widespread.<\/p>\n The three cheapest electricity sources globally last year were onshore wind, solar panels and new hydropower, according to an energy cost report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).<\/p>\n Subsidies endorsed by Trump and the Republican Party are artificially keeping fossil fuels<\/strong><\/a> viable, said University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann. <\/p>\n \u201cIf one were truly in favour of the \u2018free market\u2019 to determine this, then fossil fuels would be disappearing even faster,” he wrote in an email.<\/p>\n Relatedly, Trump falsely claimed European electricity bills are now \u201ctwo to three times higher than the United States, and our bills are coming way down.\u201d <\/p>\n But in fact, retail electricity prices in the United States have increased faster than the rate of inflation since 2022, according to the US Energy Information Administration. The agency expects prices to continue rising through 2026.<\/p>\n On the international politics of climate, the UN and the Paris Accord<\/p>\n WHAT HE SAID:<\/strong> Trump blasted the UN’s climate efforts, saying he withdrew America from the \u201cfake\u201d Paris climate accord because “America was paying so much more than every country, others weren\u2019t paying.\u201d<\/p>\n