• Former President Trump was asked whether he believes human activity contributes to climate change.
• He dodged, pointing to other countries’ climate emissions while declaring that the US must remain “competitive.”
• Trump has long denied the science behind climate change, calling it a Chinese hoax at one point.

Former President Donald Trump dodged a question on Monday about whether he believes human activity drives climate change, declaring that “the climate has always been changing” while arguing the US must not turn to renewable energy resources because it will make the country “totally non-competitive.” 

There is widespread scientific consensus that climate change is driven primarily by human activity and the resulting release of greenhouse gasses into Earth’s atmosphere.

During an interview with Fox Business host Stuart Varney that covered the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Iran nuclear deal, and the 2020 election, Trump claimed that President Joe Biden and his administration are propagating a “climate hoax” and refusing to boost oil production in the US.

That prompted Varney to ask Trump whether he thinks climate change is “a total hoax from beginning to end.”

“Well, the Green New Deal is a hoax,” said Trump.

Varney followed up, “Is the climate changing because of human activity?”

“In my opinion, you have a thing called weather, and you go up and you go down,” Trump falsely claimed in response. “The climate’s always been changing.”

Trump has long denied the reality of the growing climate crisis, falsely claiming in a now-unavailable tweet from 2012 that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.” He echoed that claim in the interview on Monday.

“Now, what we want is we want clean air, we want clean water,” Trump continued, blaming China, India, and Russia for polluted water and air in the US. 

The Trump administration significantly rolled back regulations designed to combat climate change and ensure clean water and air, reversing nearly 100 environmental rules during his presidency according to a New York Times report.

“It makes us totally non-competitive,” Trump said of clean energy. “So unless everyone’s going to do it together — the problem is, the green technology isn’t powerful enough to power our great plants.”

The former president also reiterated his long-standing grievances concerning wind turbines.

“Let’s go to the windmills. The windmills are all made in China and Germany,” he said. “They rust out and they’re gone in 10 years. For certain reasons, it’s very hard to bury them, because of what they’re made of, especially the blades, so you know, but the wind is very intermittent. It doesn’t work well, and it’s the single most expensive form of energy.”

Several of Trump’s criticisms of wind turbines and wind energy are false, exaggerated, or outdated. Wind energy is among the least expensive forms of energy. 

—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 21, 2022