Trump adviser denies climate change is manmade

Donald Trump believes that "global warming is naturally occurring" and humans are not the cause, his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said Tuesday morning on CNN — a stance that flies in the face of the vast majority of mainstream climate science.

Conway was trying to walk back the Manhattan billionaire's previous dismissals of climate change as a "hoax" driven by China. But while her remarks Tuesday might seem less extreme on the surface, they still did nothing to assuage climate activists' fears that a President Trump would attempt to bring a wrecking ball to the Obama administration's efforts to head off the most catastrophic effects of global warming.


"He doesn't believe it's manmade," CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota said to Conway, referring to climate change.

"Correct," Conway responded.

Camerota suggested: "So he believes the idea that it's manmade is a hoax."

"No, I didn't say that," Conway said.

The Sierra Club tweeted afterward: "Trump's campaign manager confirmed this morning that he doesn't understand science."

Hillary Clinton had drawn attention to Trump's beliefs on climate science during Monday night's presidential debate, saying, “Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.” Trump interrupted to reply that “I did not, I do not say that."

But in fact, Trump has repeatedly made such remarks on Twitter, writing in 2012 that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” And in 2013, he posted that “Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee — I'm in Los Angeles and it's freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!”

Presented with those posts Tuesday morning, Conway said Trump believes “that climate change is naturally occurring, that there are shifts naturally occurring,” but added that the GOP nominee does not believe that those shifts are manmade.

The vast majority of scientists disagree, saying carbon emissions from power plants, automobiles, agriculture and other human activities are driving climate change, although natural factors have an effect as well. Conservatives often explain their opposition to cutting U.S. emissions by claiming nonetheless that global warming is an entirely natural phenomenon, even if they sometimes argue that warming has halted or is cyclical.

Conway also dismissed the notion that it is possible to grasp Trump’s policy positions, be they on climate change or his stance on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, from the non-traditional media he wields so frequently.

“I think that's based on a tweet,” Conway said when asked about Trump’s previous statements that climate change is a hoax. “I just love that, that this whole man, whether he's giving a, ‘Yeah, I guess so,’ answer to Howard Stern about invading Iraq as a private citizen on an entertainment radio show, or through a tweet, we're supposed to understand all of his policies.”

However, Trump also described climate change as "a hoax" and "a money-making industry" at a December rally in South Carolina, during his run for president.

Later, Conway suggested that it is Clinton, not Trump, who has been unclear on the issue of climate change.

“We don't know what Hillary Clinton believes because nobody ever asks her,” Conway said, to which Camerota replied that the former secretary of state had addressed the issue quite clearly at Monday night’s debate. Clinton also has repeatedly promoted her climate change agenda on the campaign trail.

“Oh, she gave us the canned, scripted responses, Alisyn, about ‘Somebody's going to be the clean energy super power,’” Conway said. “Look, I can't blame her. She obviously was overprepared and wanted to make sure we heard every single scripted moment, including the snarky ones that she had prepared to say.”

GOP vice presidential candidate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, in a separate CNN interview, tried to recast his running mate's hoax comments as aimed at the notion "that bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., can control the climate of the Earth," and he blasted the Obama administration's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

And Pence also broke from both Trump's stance and the earlier comments from Conway in acknowledging that human activity was changing the climate.

"Well, look, there's no question that the activities that take place in this country and in countries around the world have some impact on the environment and some impact on climate," he said.

Tuesday's exchange on climate science occurred on the same morning that the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's climate agenda — regulations on power plants' greenhouse gas emissions — were facing crucial legal arguments in front of a federal appellate court in Washington, D.C.