Washington, Oct 23: US President Donald Trump has accused China, India and Russia of not taking care of their “filthy air” as he justified America’s withdrawal from the “unfair” Paris climate agreement.
Trump, a known climate change sceptic, wants to expand non-renewable energy. He aims to increase drilling for oil and gas, and roll back further environmental protections in America.
“Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia. Look at India, it’s filthy. The air is filthy,” Trump said during the final presidential debate with his Democratic challenger Joe Biden in Nashville, Tennessee on Thursday night.
“We have the best emission numbers that we’ve had in 35 years under this administration. We are working so well with the industry,” he said responding to a question on climate change during the debate that lasted just over 90 minutes.
Trump has repeatedly blamed countries like India and China for not doing enough on climate change, labelling them as regions with air that is impossible to breathe.
Reiterating that he loves the environment, Trump said he wants cleanest, crystal-clear water, the cleanest air. “We have the best, lowest number in carbon emissions, which is a big standard that I notice (Barack) Obama goes with all the time, not Joe. I haven’t heard Joe use the term because I’m not sure he knows what it represents or means, but I have heard Obama use it,” he said.
“The Paris Accord, I took us out because we were going to have to spend trillions of dollars and we were treated very unfairly. When they put us in there, they did is a great disservice. They were going to take away our businesses,” he asserted.
In 2017, Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, saying the international deal to keep global temperatures rises below 2 degree Celsius was disadvantageous to US workers.
Biden, on the other hand, said that if voted to power in November, he would rejoin the historic Paris agreement on climate change and hold countries like China accountable for pollution.
Trump has continuously argued that countries like China and India are benefiting the most from the Paris agreement.
Speaking to his cheering supporters at an election rally in the key battleground State of North Carolina last week, Trump had blamed countries like China, Russia and India for adding to the global air pollution.
“We have the best environmental numbers, ozone numbers, and so many other numbers. In the meantime, China, Russia, India all these countries they’re spewing stuff into the air,” he alleged.
China is the world’s biggest carbon emitter followed by the US, India and the EU.
Trump’s latest comments come at a time when pollution levels in New Delhi dropped to the ‘very poor’ category and are likely to worsen in the coming days. Delhi’s Air Quality Index (AQI) has been recorded at 302, which is in the ‘very poor’ category.
Trump asserted that he will not sacrifice tens of millions of jobs, thousands and thousands of companies, because of the Paris Accord.
“It was so unfair. China doesn’t kick in until 2030. Russia goes back to a low standard. And we kicked in right away. It would have destroyed our businesses,” he said.
“We have done an incredible job environmentally. We have the cleanest air, the cleanest water, and the best carbon emission standards that we’ve seen in many, many years,” Trump claimed.
Biden, in response to the same question on climate change, said global warming is an existential threat to humanity.
“We have a moral obligation to deal with it. We are told by all the leading scientists of the world we don’t have much time. We’re going to pass the point of no return within the next eight to 10 years,” he said.
“Four more years of this man eliminating all the regulations that were put in by us to clean up a climate, to limit emissions will put us in a position where we’re going to be in real trouble. Here’s where we have a great opportunity. I was able to get all the environmental organisations as well as labor, the people worried about jobs, to support my climate plan, because what it does, it will create millions of new good paying jobs,” he said.
Biden said that his administration is going to invest in 50,000 charging stations on our highways so that they can own the electric car market of the future. In the meantime, China is doing that, he said.
“I’ll create USD 1 trillion more in economic growth than his proposal does, not on climate, just on the economy,” he said.
“I’m gonna rejoin Paris Accord and make China abide by what they agreed to (On Paris climate accord),” Biden said as he changed his known position on fracking and said that he would transition from the oil industry pollution because it pollutes significantly.
“I would transition from the oil industry,” Biden said.
Describing it as “a big statement”, Trump urged people of oil-economy States like Texas to take note of it.
“It has to be replaced by renewable energy over time. And I’d stop giving to the oil industry; I’d stop giving them federal subsidies,” Biden responded.
The former vice president alleged that Trump takes everything out of context. “But the point is look, we have to move toward net-zero emissions. The first place to do that by the year 2035 is in energy production. By 2050 totally,” he said. (PTI)

Orlando, Oct 23: From tribal lands in Arizona and New Mexico to storm-battered Louisiana, census workers who go door to door were unable to reach all the households they needed for a complete tally of the U.S. Population, a count that ended abruptly last week after a Supreme Court ruling.
Community activists, statisticians and civil rights groups say racial and ethnic minorities are historically undercounted, and shortcomings in the 2020 census could set the course of life in their communities for years to come.
The count determines the number of congressional seats each state gets, where roads and bridges are built, how schools and health care facilities are funded, and how USD 1.5 trillion in federal resources are allocated annually.
“An undercount in our community means schools are overcrowded, hospitals are overcrowded, roads are congested,” said John Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
The census ended last week after the Supreme Court sided with President Donald Trump’s administration and suspended a lower court order allowing the head count to continue through October 31.
The U.S. Census Bureau says that overall, it reached more than 99.9% of the nation’s households, but in a nation of 330 million people, the remaining .1% represents hundreds of thousands of uncounted residents. And in small cities, even handfuls of undercounted residents can make a big difference in the resources the communities receive and the power they wield.
Also, a high percentage of households reached does not necessarily translate to an accurate count: The data’s quality depends on how it was obtained. The most accurate information comes from people who “self-respond” to the census questionnaire online, by phone or mail. Census officials say 67% of the people counted in the 2020 census responded that way.
In any case, census takers, who go door to door, fell short of the 99.9% benchmark in many pockets of the country.
In large parts of Louisiana, which was battered by two hurricanes, census takers didn’t even hit 94% of the households they needed to reach. In Window Rock, the capital of the Navajo Nation on the Arizona-New Mexico border that was ravaged by COVID-19, census takers only reached 98.9%.
Other parts of the U.S. Where the count fell short of 99.9% include Quincy, Massachusetts; New Haven, Connecticut; Asheville, North Carolina; Jackson, Mississippi; Providence, Rhode Island, and Manhattan, where neighborhoods emptied out in the spring because of the coronavirus.
Rhode Island is one of about 10 states projected to lose a congressional seat, based on anticipated state population figures in the 2020 census. It could take as few as 30,000 overlooked people for the nation’s physically smallest state to revert back to having a single House district, said John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, a nonprofit watchdog.
The early conclusion of the census “is really going to stymie our efforts, not only to maintain that second district but also to have fair representation in our state legislature,” Marion said.
Jackson, Mississippi, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba blamed the coronavirus, which curtailed in-person outreach efforts that could have made a difference in hard-to-count neighborhoods. The mayor isn’t sure having an extra two weeks would have made a huge difference, but he says not having a complete count is significant: Jackson loses $1,000 each year for every person not counted.
“All of this has long-term implications for city planning, for how we address our needs, and for ensuring that we are fairly represented in the state house and in Congress,” Lumumba said.
There are also concerns about the quality of the data obtained. The second-most accurate information after self-responses comes from household members being interviewed by census takers. When census takers can’t reach someone at home, they turn to less-accurate information from neighbors, landlords and administrative records, the latter of which have been in widespread use for the first time this year. Information was obtained by these methods for almost 40% of the census takers’ caseload, according to the Census Bureau.
“Do not be fooled by the Census Bureau’s 99% myth. If there was ever fake news, this is it,” said Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, one of the civil rights groups that challenged the Trump administration’s census schedule in court.
Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham said Monday that a first look at the data collection operation indicates “an extremely successful execution.” He noted that the 67% self-response rate this year was higher than the 66.5% reached during the 2010 census.
How much time the Census Bureau has to crunch the numbers is still being fought in courts and in Congress. Civil rights groups and others are pushing Congress to extend the bureau’s deadline for turning in apportionment numbers for congressional seats from Dec. 31 to the end of next April. (AGENCIES)