Donald Trump washes his hands of climate change

President Donald Trump has a real thing for cleanliness. As he made clear at an event staged at the White House, this extends far beyond copious use of hand-sanitizer – from sea to sanitary sea, no less. Kicking off his remarks
on “America’s Environmental Leadership,” the president spelled out his concerns:
From day one, my administration has made it a top priority to ensure that America has among the very cleanest air and cleanest water on the pla-net. We want the cleanest air. We want crystal clean water. And that’s what we’re doing.
These are laudable goals and central to the Environmental Protection Agency’s mandate since its inception almost 50 years ago. They’re also at odds with the broad thrust of the administration’s actual policies. But they are potentially politically useful.
The environmental issue dominating discussion is climate change. Yet this barely got a few mentions in either Trump’s remarks or those of the other officials who spoke, including EPA chief Andrew Wheeler and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. The White House fact sheet had exactly one bullet point on it, noting US carbon emissions had increased in 2018 but were forecast to decline again this year and next.
People care about the environment in general, but carbon emissions are a tougher sell. Invisible, diffuse and acting on climate at a glacial pace, they lack the poisonous immediacy of, say, a flaming Cuyahoga River or choking urban smog. Mobilising action on climate change would be much easier if carbon dioxide was a bilious green.
Even so, climate change has forced its way onto the political agenda, thanks in part to the sheer audacity of the “Green New Deal” and growing awareness of fires and floods around the US, including recent deluges in Washington, DC (both factors name-checked by Trump in his remarks). And as demands for government to do something on climate change have both intensified and broadened in scope, so previous opponents of action have begun to reposition themselves, including oil majors and even senior
Republican politicians.
A recent Gallup poll of attitudes towards environmental issues found 65 percent of Americans think environmental protection should take priority even if it risks curbing economic growth, versus just 30 percent with opposite priorities. That spread has been widening since 2015 and is now the widest since 2000. Meanwhile, 59 percent of respondents view Trump as doing a “poor job” of protecting the nation’s environment, compared with 33 percent for President Barack Obama and 43 percent for President George W. Bush at the same stage of their administrations.
Trump’s remarks should be set in this context as well as the record of his administration. Since his presidential campaign, the president has shown no real interest in curbing US carbon emissions, in keeping with a broader approach that prioritises fossil-fuel production and curtails regulatory powers. Among other things, he trumpets ”energy dominance” built on shale oil and gas as well as rolling back fuel-efficiency standards that could provide more sustainable energy security for the US (and cut emissions). He is particularly given to waxing lyrical about “beautiful”, “clean” coal, despite it being neither of those things.
Focussing instead on “clean” air and water provides a way of showing interest in environmental issues without dirtying his hands on climate change. It isn’t uncommon to hear fuel producers talk about “clean” fuels without acknowledging that, even with fewer particulates or other nasties, burning that fuel still puts carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Above all, it’s a useful term denoting responsible stewardship unless you are of a mind to look at the details.
That same Gallup poll asked respondents about their attitudes towards a series of environmental threats. Climate change worried 44 percent of them a “great deal,” up from 37 percent
before Trump’s election.
But here’s the thing: Traditional air pollution and contaminated water appear to be bigger worries. Of the six specific problems the pollsters asked about, these easily topped the list.
When it comes to climate change, Trump need hardly worry about his vaunted base. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in January found that while the proportion of Republicans saying stricter environmental standards are “worth the cost” had risen, 60 percent of the more conservative cohort still hold the opposing view. For those voters, Trump’s environmental message, as far as it matters, would likely resonate more because of other aspects of his address, especially his framing of pollution as something done largely
by other countries causing ”garbage” to wash up on America’s shores. This
eco-nationalism, paralleling Trump’s broader trade and immigration stances — not to mention energy dominance — is something he has
mentioned before.
Given the threat of climate change and the socialisation of its damage, this is all about as un-conservative, in the original sense of the word, as you can get. That Trump bemoaned the yugecosts of the Green New Deal on a day when Washington (including the soggy basement of his official residence) amply displayed the inadequacies of our infrastructure against extreme weather lent the whole affair a touch of dark farce. Last I heard, the costs of renewable energy and efficiency technologies were falling dramatically; I doubt the same holds true for clean-up and construction crews to put our cities on stilts.
And yet, by focussing on such issues and extolling a narrow environmental cleanliness, Trump may hope to craft a message that resonates with some of the more moderate or younger Republicans he must court if he is to improve his fortunes in November 2020. It really is a dirty business.

—Bloomberg

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy, mining and commodities. He previously was editor of the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote for the Financial Times’ Lex column.