Trump to Fight Climate Change by Joining One Trillion Trees Initiative

(Photo : reutersconnect.com)

President Donald Trump surprised the attendees of Davos World Economic Forum 2020 as well as the international ecological community with his recent announcement to join the One Trillion Trees initiative to fight climate change.

"We're committed to conserving the majesty of God's creation and the natural beauty of our world," Trump said.

It can be recalled that during the World Economic Forum 2019, ecologist Dr. Thomas Crowther suggested that planting 1.2 trillion trees could compensate for global CO2 emissions.

This environmentally-inclined announcement drew some of the most sustained applause of Trump's 30-minute speech, which focused mostly on his administration's accomplishments and the strength of the U.S. economy, a message contrasted with other world leaders who used the forum as a platform to highlight environmental issues like climate change as well as the call for global collaboration.

The POTUS called himself "a very big believer in the environment," after recently telling  reporters that he no longer believes that climate change is a hoax. "Nothing's a hoax about that. It's a very serious subject," he said in an interview two weeks ago. "I want clean air; I want clean water. I want the cleanest air with the cleanest water. The environment's very important to me."

This is a very different tone than Trump struck during his controversial decision to withdraw from the international Paris Climate Accord, which he also criticized as being a ploy to drain jobs and money from Americans.

"No responsible leader can put the workers - and the people - of their country at this debilitating and tremendous disadvantage," said Trump at the time, adding that the Accord "hamstrings the United States, while empowering some of the world's top polluting countries."

Said declaration also contradicts his recent announcement of changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that includes exempting agencies from considering climate change among the environmental impacts of their infrastructure projects. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said this practice had "paralyzed commonsense decision-making for a generation."

Trump simply stated that he "will continue to show strong leadership in restoring, growing and better managing our trees and our forests," not specifying the details on how the U.S. would participate in the initiative.

Meanwhile, environmentalists have expressed alarm over his administration's policies, including rolling back regulations meant to curb air and water pollution and withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement.

Also present at the World Economic Forum was 17-year old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg whom Trump, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, referred to as someone he didn't "really know anything" about. He also dismissed her as "very angry."

Trump has previously accused Thunberg of having an "anger management problem" after winning Time's "Person of the Year" award in December.

In Tuesday, the young environmental activist told the Davos forum that world leaders are not doing enough to combat climate change. She also urged them to treat climate change as a "real crisis."

"We need to start listening to the science, and treat this crisis with the importance it deserves," Thunberg said.