Republican presidential candidates have poured scorn on Barack Obama for his comments at the Paris climate talks, with Mike Huckabee mocking him as the “meteorologist-in-chief” and Ted Cruz claiming Obama thinks “having an SUV in your driveway” is more dangerous than Isis.

In a speech to more than 130 world leaders and other delegates at the key UN summit on Monday, the US president quoted Martin Luther King by saying “there is such a thing as being too late”.

“And when it comes to climate change, that hour is almost upon us,” the US president said. “But if we act here, if we act now, if we place our own short-term interests behind the air that our young people will breathe, and the food that they will eat, and the water that they will drink, and the hopes and dreams that sustain their lives, then we won’t be too late for them.”

The threat of climate change “could define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other”, he added.

The president’s remarks were derided by Republicans, who accused him of failing to adequately recognise what they saw as the greater threat posed by Islamic militants.

Donald Trump, the GOP frontrunner in polls, said Obama’s speech was “one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen, or perhaps most naive”.

“I think one of the dumbest statements I’ve ever heard in politics, in the history of politics as I know it, which is pretty good, was Obama’s statement that our No 1 problem is global warming,” Trump, who disputes the mainstream scientific understanding that human activity is warming the planet, told CNN.

Other Republicans vying for the party’s presidential nomination weighed in, with Texas senator Cruz telling a gathering in Iowa that Obama “apparently thinks having an SUV in your driveway is more dangerous than a bunch of terrorists trying to blow up the world”.

Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, tweeted along similar lines, calling Obama “clueless” and mocking him as “meteorologist-in-chief”.

Not a joke: @POTUS thinks two-stroke engines & sunburns are a greater threat to America than Islamic terrorism. #ParisClimateConference — Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) November 30, 2015

Mitch McConnell, the US Senate majority leader, told the Senate that international leaders should be aware that there was more than one base of political power in the US and that Congress opposed Obama’s “regressive and likely illegal” regulations on power plants designed to slash their greenhouse gas emissions.

“He’s currently trying to sell that power plan to world leaders in Paris as proof of the American government’s commitment to his energy priorities,” McConnell said. “But with all due respect to the president as our commander-in-chief, governments currently engaged in this round of climate talks will want to know that there is more than just an executive branch in our system of government.”

McConnell raised the possibility of a Republican successor to Obama tearing up the power plant plan, claiming that the regulations “could result in the elimination of as many as a quarter of a million US jobs” without any significant impact upon world temperatures.

As expected, Congress approved two motions on Tuesday to overturn Obama’s centrepiece emissions reduction policy, which uses the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce new limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The move is expected to be symbolic as Obama has promised to veto the bills.

The votes went largely along party lines, although 10 Republicans sided with Democrats to oppose a motion that blocked emissions limits on new power plants.



Steve Scalise, Republican majority whip, said Obama’s plan means “unelected bureaucrats at the EPA will bring forth regulations that will kill jobs in the US and increase energy and other costs on hardworking taxpayers.”



The staunch opposition of Republicans is in contrast to the urgency expressed by a succession of international leaders over the need to tackle climate change. Pope Francis added his voice to the political leaders on Monday, warning that the world was “at the limits of suicide” if nations did not ramp up efforts to reduce emissions.

Meanwhile, the World Food Programme warned that unchecked climate change, linked to extreme weather and prolonged droughts, risked leaving millions of people without reliable access to food.

Obama had a working dinner with the French president, François Hollande, on Monday before meeting with leaders from small island nations on Tuesday morning. The US president announced a $30m package to help the island nations, which are particularly vulnerable to sea level rises and extreme weather, improve their climate resilience.