U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he had read parts of a U.S. government report projecting that climate change will cost the country’s economy billions of dollars by the end of the century, but he does not believe the economic impacts will be devastating.
“I’ve seen it, I’ve read some of it, and it’s fine,” he told reporters at the White House. Asked about severe economic impacts, he said, “I don’t believe it.”
Last year, Trump announced he would withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris Deal to combat climate change. He has also rolled back Obama-era environmental and climate protections to boost production of domestic fossil fuels.
The congressionally mandated report www.globalchange.gov, written with the help of more than a dozen U.S. government agencies and departments, said the effects of climate change would undermine human health, damage infrastructure, limit water availability, alter coastlines and increase costs in various industries.
The report also said projections of damage could change if greenhouse gas emissions were curbed, although many of the impacts of climate change, like powerful storms, droughts and flooding, have already begun.
Reporting by Jeff Mason; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker