Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has claimed that cutting climate funding would save the U.S. $100 billion over eight years, in another remark that observers say demonstrates the dangers of a potential Trump presidency.
“We’re going to put America first. That includes canceling billions in climate change spending for the United Nations, a number [Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton] wants to increase, and instead use that money to provide for American infrastructure including clean water, clean air, and safety,” Trump said at an Oct. 31 rally in Warren, Michigan. “We’re giving away billions and billions and billions of dollars.”
The Republican nominee has stood by these projections even as economists put the global costs of business-as-usual emissions in the trillions of dollars.
In another policy statement released by his team later that day, Trump said he would cancel all “wasteful” climate change spending currently under way by the Obama administration and planned by the Clinton campaign—a sum he said would amount to $100 billion over eight years.