Last week’s report from the White House on the impacts of climate change are still being digested, but one group of experts in Florida said the impacts on the country’s southeast peninsula could be more devastating than in any other state.
Several experts assembled by the nonprofit ReThink Energy Florida said the state should be prepared for warmer water temperatures, which fuel toxic algae, red tide and more severe hurricanes.
University of Florida geology professor Andrew Dutton said water levels could also rise 20 percent more than the global average, threatening the state’s low-lying cities.
On Monday, President Trump said he didn’t believe his own administration’s report.
“No, no I don’t believe it,” Trump told a gaggle of reporters outside on the White House’s south lawn.
“And here’s the other thing, you’re going to have to China and Japan and all of Asia and all of these other countries, you know, it addresses our country. Right now we’re the cleanest we’ve ever been. And that’s very important to me. But if we’re clean, but every other place on Earth is dirty, that’s not so good. So I want clean air, I want clean water, very important.”
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders would later say the report was based on the most extreme scenario.
The report comes a month after the U.N. released its newest report on climate change, lowering its previous guidance.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change now says a 1.5 degree warming of the Earth, not the two degrees it previously advised, could have devastating impacts on the planet that may never reverse.
Climate change will be discussed in Poland this weekend as 30,000 delegates from around the world prepare to attend the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change there.