Haley: ‘Trump believes the climate is changing’

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Saturday that President Trump believes that “pollutants” have a role in climate change and that the “U.S. has to be responsible” for a changing climate.

“President Trump believes the climate is changing and he believes pollutants are part of the equation,” Haley said in a pre-taped interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Haley’s comments come days after Trump announced he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord, which he criticized as unfair for the U.S.

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“Just because the U.S. got out of a club doesn’t mean we aren’t going to care about the environment,” Haley told CNN.

The U.S. diplomat went on to say that the “U.S. has to be responsible for” the climate and “that’s what we’re going to do.”

Haley’s comments come after Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Scott Pruitt and White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Friday refused to say whether Trump believes in climate change.

“All the discussions we had through the last several weeks had been focused on one singular issue: Is Paris good or not for this country?” Pruitt said.

Spicer also dodged questions regarding the president’s stance on climate change, saying, “I have not had an opportunity to have that discussion.”

Trump has expressed skepticism of climate change in the past, claiming in 2012 that climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese.

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012

In November, Trump told The New York Times that there was “some connectivity” between human activity and climate change, but did not say to what extent.