The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt said on Thursday that he does not believe that carbon dioxide is a “primary contributor” to climate change.
During an interview with CNBC, host Joe Kernen asked Pruitt if he believed that carbon dioxide is the main “control knob” in increasing the global temperature. Pruitt said that there is “tremendous disagreement” about the impact that human activity has on the climate and that he does not agree that carbon dioxide is a primary factor to climate change.
“No, I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact,” Pruitt said. “So no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. But we don’t know that yet.”
Pruitt has ties to the energy industry, has frequently been called a climate change denier and his refusal to fully embrace the idea that humans contribute to climate change was an issue frequently brought up in his confirmation hearing.
Watch the full clip below:
