(CNN) Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler did not voice alarm Wednesday about the dire predictions in the government's recent climate report, and instead said the Trump administration deserves credit for a decline in carbon emissions in his first remarks since the government released a devastating report Friday on the growing impacts of climate change.

"In the first year of the Trump administration, we've seen a 2.7% reduction in CO2 from 2016 to 2017," Wheeler told an audience at a Washington Post event.

The Fourth National Climate Assessment, released by the administration the day after Thanksgiving, concluded the effects of rising temperatures will devastate the US economy, result in thousands of premature deaths and lead to severe weather events.

Wheeler, who is the acting administrator of the EPA and Trump's pick to lead the agency, said he had not finished reading the report and had not yet discussed it with President Donald Trump, a clear sign of the priority the administration is giving the report.

"I'm not aware of a formal process within the administration" to incorporate it into decision-making, Wheeler said.

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