Less than an hour after President Trump took the oath of office on Friday, the White House’s webpage on climate change disappeared from the Executive Branch’s main site, the latest sign that the new administration will divert resources – and attention – from the issue.
The removal of the page from the White House’s website came around the same time the site and other Executive Branch digital platforms were overhauled to reflect the new administration. The Obama Administration’s climate change page still exists, but was migrated to a National Archives website.
{mosads}Trump has long denied, or at least questioned, the nearly unanimous agreement among scientists that human activity is causing rapid shifts in the Earth’s climate. At one point, the president called the phenomenon a “hoax” propagated by China to make U.S. manufacturing less competitive.
He has also brought into question whether the U.S. will adhere to the United Nation’s landmark climate deal, which went into effect late last year. Trump has indicated that the U.S. could withdraw from the accord, though such a move would take years to accomplish.
Former President Barack Obama expressed enthusiasm to tackle global climate change throughout his time in office, offering a Climate Action Plan in 2013 that outlined how the U.S. would respond to the issue.
Updated at 4:05 p.m.