Donald Trump called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” At the United Nations General Assembly. He also added that, “If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail.”
His comments are going completely against the rising oceans, more powerful and devastating storms, the fatal heat, and floods that many scientists and officials describe as part of everyday life. Evans Davie Njewa of Malawi and Ilana Seid of Palau, which are two voices from small islands and African countries, warned that apathy would “be a betrayal of the most vulnerable” and that “we are endangering the lives of innocent people in the world.”
During Hurricane Sandy in the United States, Adelle Thomas, a climate scientist from the Bahamas and vice chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), connected science to personal experience, saying that “the devastation of the climate disaster” is not abstract.
What Trump said vs. what’s happening
Trump referred to wind energy and solar energy as if they were a “joke” and “pathetic,” claiming they “don’t work” and are too costly.
Last year, onshore wind, solar power, and new hydropower were the three least expensive electricity sources, according to IRENA. “If one were truly in favor of the ‘free market’ to determine this, then fossil fuels would be disappearing even faster,” Michael Mann said, adding that subsidies support fossil fuels.
Regarding global duty, Trump called the Paris Agreement unfair to the United States and “fake.” For him, the pact is based on each nation establishing its own goals and assisting those who are most in danger.
To add some numbers into this not-to-solid theories, leaders like Evans Davie Njewa, Adelle Thomas, and Ilana Seid cited the background. Because, truth is that carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for more than a century, and that’s what makes past emissions so important. The entire continent of Africa, which has four times the population of the United States, is responsible for only 3% of human-caused CO₂ since 1850, but the United States has contributed to nearly 24%, according to the Global Carbon Project.
“clean, beautiful coal”
Trump joked about “clean, beautiful coal.” And Rob Jackson replied: “The president can pretend coal is clean, but real people — mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters — will die for this lie.” Trump also called the carbon footprint “a hoax made up by people with evil intentions.”
Andrew Dessler agreed the term was popularized by oil companies and can shift blame from corporations to individuals. But, the underlying science is straightforward and long-tested: CO₂ traps heat. The IPCC states, “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.” Even in 2018, Trump’s own administration wrote: “The impacts of global climate change are already being felt in the United States and are projected to intensify in the future.”
More action, less politics
For people in places like Palau, Malawi, and the Bahamas, climate risk is not theoretical. It’s the daily life: sea-level rise, stronger storms, and heat extremes are threatening homes, jobs, and even health. As Adelle Thomas said: “Millions of people around the world can already testify to the devastation that climate change has brought to their lives. The evidence is not abstract. It is lived, it is deadly, and it demands urgent action.”
Climate change is affecting everyone and everything, and it’s getting so real that even fish in the U.S. are already paying a high price with hotter heatwaves every summer. Facts need to be accepted and action really needs to be done, like yesterday.
According to IRENA, the effects of global warming are obvious, cleaner power is getting cheaper, the transition is becoming more affordable, and the most vulnerable are usually the least responsible. And for this reason, leaders in the UN General Assembly are asking to put politics aside and demanding action.