President Barack Obama said Friday that the Republican Party is the “only major party” in the “advanced world” that denies climate change.
“Keep in mind right now, the American Republican Party is the only major party that I can think of in the advanced world that effectively denies climate change,” Obama said at what was billed as his last press conference of the year. “I mean, it’s an outlier.”
“Even the far right parties in many of these countries may not like immigrants, for example, but they admit, yeah, the science tells us we have to do something about climate change,” he continued.
Obama said America must continue its legacy of advancing environmentally-friendly legislation despite of the GOP’s climate change denial. He cited former Republican President George H. W. Bush’s system to charge for emissions that caused acid rain in 1989 as an example.
“American strength and American exceptionalism is not just a matter of us bombing somebody,” Obama said, adding it’s “leading by example.”
He also reiterated that the reversal of climate change will be gradual, not a-cut and-dry, change.
