Bernie Sanders: Kudlow’s comments on UN climate change report ‘so irresponsible’

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Sunday that top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow’s comments pushing back against a United Nations climate change report were very irresponsible.

“The comments … that Larry Kudlow made are so irresponsible, so dangerous that it’s just hard to believe that a leading government official could make them,” Sanders told ABC’s “This Week,” following statements Kudlow made to ABC earlier Sunday.

“We have 12 years,” Sanders said, citing the recent U.N. study that stated the world would need to slash emissions by 45 percent before 2030, or else the atmosphere may warm by 1.5 degrees Celsius.

{mosads}”We have 12 years to substantially cut the amount of carbon in our atmosphere, or this planet, our country, the rest of the world, is going to suffer irreversible damage.”

“We are in crisis mode and you have an administration that virtually does not even recognize the reality of climate change,” Sanders said, charging that the Trump administration has policies “working with the Fossil Fuel industry” that are “making a bad situation worse.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders says we are in “crisis mode” on climate change and Larry Kudlow’s comments “are so irresponsible, so dangerous that it’s just hard to believe that a leading government official could make them.” https://t.co/iDWHZE9l1L #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/b3vmo7TjV5

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 14, 2018

Kudlow argued on ABC’s “This Week” earlier Sunday that the U.N.’s past errors in modeling made him skeptical of its report.

“The issue here … is magnitudes and timing,” Kudlow told ABC when asked about the study. “Personally, I think the U.N. study … is … way, way too difficult. I won’t say it’s a scare tactic, but I think they overestimate.”

As an alternative to the U.N. report, Kudlow pointed to the work of economist Bill Nordhaus, who has argued that keeping temperatures from rising to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit over preindustrial levels, as the U.N. study recommends, is impossible. 

“Bill Nordhaus from Yale got a Nobel Prize on his own economic work with respect to climate change,” he said. “He’s a really brilliant guy.”