Donald Trump has waffled on the subject of climate change, referring to it in the past as a hoax created by the Chinese to put American businesses at a disadvantage. | Getty Trump adviser compares climate change research to belief Earth is flat

Whether or not President-elect Donald Trump believes in climate change does not matter, a member of his transition team’s executive committee said Wednesday morning, because the policies he plans to pursue will ultimately reduce pollution and “protect the environment for future generations of Americans.”

Trump has waffled on the subject of climate change, referring to it in the past as a hoax created by the Chinese to put American businesses at a disadvantage. But he has more recently begun to admit that there is a connection between human activity and global warming. He has met with former Vice President Al gore and actor/activist Leonardo DiCaprio, both men for whom climate change is a pet issue. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, is expected to play a large role in her father’s administration and has said she plans to make climate change one of her signature issues.


But Trump has also promised an increase in fossil fuel usage and has named Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt, a prominent legal opponent of the Environmental Protection Agency who rejects widely-accepted climate science, as the agency’s administrator.

"The president-elect is a very common sense oriented guy and basically what he said is if we reduce carbon emissions, the air is going to get cleaner. That's a positive thing whether you believe in climate change or not,” transition team executive committee member Anthony Scaramucci said on CNN’s “New Day” Wednesday morning.

What Trump also wants, Scaramucci continued, is energy independence for the U.S., which would allow the country’s “geopolitical footprint” to change, altering national security and the use of the military.

Scaramucci suggested that climate change and humans’ impact on it remains an open question within the scientific community but was corrected by anchor Chris Cuomo, who pointed out that it is the “overwhelming consensus” of climate scientists that human activity is warming the planet. Scaramucci contended that “we did a lot of things wrong in the scientific community,” comparing researched climate change findings to the centuries-old belief that the world was flat.

“Of course it's a genuine commitment to clean air and clean water, Chris, whether you accept the science or not,” Scaramucci said. “It's better for the United States and better for the world to have the U.S. be energy independent. Have us have clean air and clean water and protect the environment for future generations of Americans. All of that makes sense.”