In his second and final presidential debate, Trump renewed his criticism that action on climate change was unfair to the United States.
“Look at China, how disgusting it is. Look at Russia, look at India, it’s disgusting. The air is disgusting,” Trump said at the debate in Nashville.
That was the only mention of India during a debate that mostly stayed away from foreign policy and strategic interests.
Trump’s comments come days before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper visit New Delhi to discuss building the growing US-India partnership.
Trump denounced that Biden’s climate plan was an “economic disaster” for oil states like Texas and Oklahoma.
Biden said that climate change is “an existential threat to humanity. We have a moral obligation to deal with it.”
“We are going to pass the point of no return within the next eight to 10 years,” he said.
The planet has already warmed about one degree Celsius (34 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels, enough to increase the intensity of deadly heat waves, droughts and tropical storms.
In 2017, Trump pulled the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate accord, saying that the international agreement to keep global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius was disadvantageous for American workers.
He has continually argued that countries like China and India benefit the most from the Paris agreement.
Speaking to cheering supporters at an election rally in North Carolina state, a key battlefield, last week, Trump had blamed countries like China, Russia and India for increasing global air pollution.
“We have the best environmental numbers, ozone levels and many other numbers. Meanwhile, China, Russia, India, all these countries, are throwing things into the air,” he claimed during the rally.
China is the world’s largest carbon emitter, followed by the US, India and the EU.
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