Nobody really knows if climate change is real —Donald Trump

United States of America’s (USA) President-elect, Donald Trump, has said that “nobody really knows” whether climate change is real and that he is “studying” whether the United States should withdraw from the global warming agreement struck in Paris a year ago.

Noting that the reality of climate change is an open question, Trump in an interview with “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace, said that he is “very open-minded” on whether climate change is underway, but has serious concerns about how President Obama’s efforts to cut carbon emissions have undercut America’s global competitiveness.

“I’m still open-minded. Nobody really knows. Look, I’m somebody that gets it, and nobody really knows. It is not something that is so hard and fast,” he said.

Trump told Wallace he is studying whether the United States should withdraw from its commitment to limit environmental output made at the Paris summit last year.

“Now, Paris, I’m studying. I do say this. I don’t want that agreement to put us at a competitive disadvantage with other countries. And as you know, there are different times and different time limits on that agreement. I don’t want that to give China, or other countries signing agreements an advantage over us,” Trump said.

However, there is a broad scientific consensus that human activities including the burning of fossil fuels for transportation, heating and industrial manufacturing are major factors driving recent climate change. The top 10 hottest years on record have all been since 1998, and 2016 is expected to be the hottest year since formal record-keeping began in 1880.

This is not the first time that Trump has disregarded that established scientific view.

On the campaign trail, Trump called climate change a “hoax” that is being pushed by China, but in recent weeks has showed a growing interest in looking into issue. His daughter, Ivanka, has spoken publicly about taking on the issue as one of her platforms and Trump has met with notable environmentalists, including former Vice President Al Gore and actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

However, Trump named Oklahoma Attorney General, Scott Pruitt as his choice for head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), though Pruitt is a climate change doubter who is currently suing the EPA.

Trump defended his selection of Pruitt by blasting the current state of the EPA, saying businesses don’t want to invest in the United States because there are too many regulations, which Pruitt will help loosen.

“If you look at what I could name country after country. You look at what is happening in Mexico, where our people are just — plants are being built, and they don’t wait 10 years to get an approval to build a plant, okay? They build it like the following day or the following week. We can’t let all of these permits that take forever to get stop our jobs,” he said.