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Making several appearances Thursday on CNN to discuss the aftermath of Donald Trump winning the presidential election, CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir fretted over a second Trump administration’s climate policies, and declared that the President-elect is “the most notorious climate denier in history” who will let the climate “go to hell.”

This is the same Bill Weir who famously declared “even the seagulls” were “awed” with Barack Obama’s first inauguration. 

Shortly before 9:00 a.m. during extended election coverage, CNN host Sara Sidner hinted at global warming being to blame for recent extreme weather, and provocatively called Trump a “climate denier” as she set up the segment:

These wildfires are just the latest in a slew of unprecedented severe weather events — including, as you remember, back-to-back hurricanes and extreme heat. President-elect Donald Trump is a known climate denier vowing to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord a second time. His election comes on the heels of startling new data showing worsening effects of delaying action against climate change.

Her reference to a high hurricane frequency being “unprecedented” flies in the face of data showing there have been many times since the mid 1800s that several hurricanes have made landfall in the U.S. in just one hurricane season.

Weir then came aboard and recounted the different possibilities for how many degrees warmer the world might become and argued that it is necessary to cut back fossil fuel burning within five years to prevent dire consequences. He soon took aim at President-elect Trump: “Every country in the world says we’re going to try to hold the line at 1.5, and now we’re here just as maybe the most notorious climate denier in history takes power once again.”

As he appeared again in the afternoon shortly before 3 p.m., Weir fearmongered that there would be “hell on Earth” if the world fails to cut carbon emissions, and then took aim at Trump again: “Once we hit two degrees, if you think things are bad now, imagine the hell on Earth that would be three degrees of global warming. Well, Donald Trump is basically saying, ‘Go to hell — go to that hell,’ because he doesn’t want to even acknowledge the existence of the problem.”

He soon repeated his claim that Trump is “the most notorious climate denier in the public eye these days.”

Transcripts below:

CNN

November 7, 2024

8:57 a.m. Eastern

SARA SIDNER: These wildfires are just the latest in a slew of unprecedented severe weather events — including, as you remember, back-to-back hurricanes and extreme heat. President-elect Donald Trump is a known climate denier vowing to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord a second time. His election comes on the heels of startling new data showing worsening effects of delaying action against climate change. CNN’s Bill Weir is joining us now. What could a second Trump administration mean for the — for the planet? Which is a huge question.

BILL WEIR: It is a very big question at such a vital time. Science says these next five years are everything when it comes to winding down the fuels that burn, replacing them with the abundant clean energy of the sun in the sky. But he wants to roll it all back. If the first term was any indication, he will gut all environmental regulation, give oil and gas producers sort of carte blanche, as he promised there, as well. It will be interesting to see how much he can claw back of the Inflation Reduction Act because a lot of that money is going to the Republican districts — over 75 percent of it right now.

But this is really the crux of it. Take a look at this temperature chart, Sara. This year, 2024 — according to Copernicus, the European space unit — will shatter all records, being the warmest ever. And it’s the first year where we’ve blown past the 1.5 degrees Celsius or three degrees Fahrenheit limit of the Paris climate accords. Every country in the world says we’re going to try to hold the line at 1.5, and now we’re here just as maybe the most notorious climate denier in history takes power once again.

SIDNER: It is concerning to a lot of people — young people have talked about this quite a bit. What does this tell us about what we will see? I mean, temperatures hottest ever this year?

WEIR: Right, right. And it stalls the knockoff effects and a new report out that insurance losses in the last decade 50 percent higher than the decade before. It’s changing property values and building codes and immigrant streams and supply chains. All of this is happening in real time. So you have to adapt to the pain that’s already built in while trying to mitigate the price of it right now. And then there’s disaster response. under the Trump and Biden administration which we saw the very different approaches under the Trump and Biden administration as to who gets the aid — sometimes it’s a political favor under Trump. So all of this has folks in the climate environmental space very, very worried.

And it also has a lot of brave faces. You’ve got folks from California saying, “We will continue to lead.” The state of Washington passed a sweeping climate bond bill there and laws to sort of protect that. Californians passed that bond bill. So what you might see is a kind of balkanization of states like Minnesota, Michigan, California that are going to lead the way on this clean technologies. But at the end of the day, these cleaner alternatives now are the cheapest in human history. So Texas leads the nation in green energy right now. So we’ll see. But the immediate pain — that’s what folks have to deal with — these immediate storms and wildfires.

SIDNER: Yup, and we’re seeing them play out right now in California — a place where some insurers have pulled back because they can’t keep affording to rebuild those houses. It is always a pleasure to see you even though you bring us sometimes disappointing and sad news.

(…)

CNN News Central

November 7, 2024

2:53 p.m. Eastern

BORIS SANCHEZ: There is a wildfire raging in Southern California; a late-season hurricane tearing through Cuba and threatening the U.S. Gulf Coast; and also record autumn heat across the country. These are now just some of the realities of climate change. The question is: How will the U.S. respond to it under a second Trump administration?

BRIANNA KEILAR: Yeah, there’s a new report that finds that 2024 is on track to be the warmest year ever. I know we’re feeling that in Washington, D.C., today for sure, and it may cross a red line scientists are really worried about. CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir is here with more on this. Bill, 2024 will be the first calendar year to exceed the Paris agreement threshold. What does it mean for the planet?

BILL WEIR: Well, that line — that 1.5-degree Celsius or three degrees Fahrenheit was the idea that anything beyond that would just be so hard to adapt and to do it in time. Once we hit two degrees, if you think things are bad now, imagine the hell on Earth that would be three degrees of global warming. Well, Donald Trump is basically saying, “Go to hell — go to that hell,” because he doesn’t want to even acknowledge the existence of the problem. He won with a promise to supercharge the economy and fix the border and heal America, but climate change is the hole in every one of those buckets, making it that much harder to deal with streams of immigrants coming from Central America after storms or droughts down there, dealing with the economy in places like Asheville, North Carolina, completely devastated.

We’ll put up a map of the ocean temperatures as well, hitting records around the globe, especially around the United States — the Atlantic and the Gulf there. That, of course, makes hurricanes stronger, faster. It moves water cycles in much less predictable ways. It effects everything from insurance rates — there’s a crisis on that — to supply chains. And the wildfires that you’re talking about now in California — these warm planet dries things out faster, makes a more flammable Earth. And so at the absolute time scientists saying that humanity must rally together, decarbonize as quick as humanely possible, and brace for the pain that’s built in, the United States has really elected the most notorious climate denier in the public eye these days.

Next week at COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, the world is supposed to meet to talk about finance for developing countries, helping them adapt and get green in time. But we’re already hearing diplomats may not be going because of the clues from the United States the Trump administration not interested. And certainly global climate diplomacy, for the countries that really take this seriously, that’s a major issue. But there may be enough built-in momentum green energy projects, especially in Republican districts, Brianna and Boris, that it will be hard to claw those back here in the United States.