Bitterly cold weather across the northern United States has brought record snow fall and frozen parts of New York's Lake Erie. President Donald Trump says it's proof he was right to pull the country out of the Paris climate agreement.
ADVERTISEMENTBitterly cold weather across the northern United States has brought record snow fall and frozen parts of New York's Lake Erie.
President Donald Trump say in a tweet that it's proof he was right to pull the country out of the Paris climate agreement.
"In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!"
The tweet brought its own storm of responses, with people trying to explain climate change to the American president, who once dismissed the phenomenon as a Chinese hoax designed to harm the U.S. economy.
"Believe it or not, global climate change is very real even if it's cold outside Trump Tower right now," wrote Jon Foley, the Executive Director of the California Academy of Sciences. "Just like there's still hunger in the world, even if you just had a Big Mac."
The Western U.S. has been plagued by wildfires in recent months and California Governor Jerry Brown has put the blame on climate change - and on Trump's refusal to take it seriously.
With just days to go, the World Meteorological Organization says 2017 has been one of the hottest years ever recorded.