United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed India, China and Russia were not doing enough to clean up their smokestacks and industrial plants. He alleged that the garbage dropped by these countries into seas floats into Los Angeles in the US.

He made the comments during a speech at the Economic Club of New York. “We have a relatively small piece of land – the United States,” Trump said. “And you compare that to some of the other countries like China, like India, like Russia, like many other countries that absolutely are doing absolutely nothing to clean up their smokestacks and clean up all of their plants and all of the garbage that they’re dropping in sea and that floats into Los Angeles, along with other problems that Los Angeles has, by the way. Isn’t amazing it ends up in Los Angeles? Oh, what a – what a mess that is.”

Calling climate change a “very complex issue”, he said: “I consider myself to be, in many ways, an environmentalist, believe it or not”.

“When I build buildings, I did the best environmental impact statements,” the president claimed. “I was – you know, I know the game better than anybody.”

He said the US pulled out of the Paris climate agreement as it was a “one-sided, horrible, horrible, economically unfair” one. “The horrible Paris Climate Accord killed American jobs and shielded foreign polluters,” Trump alleged. “It was a disaster for this country.”

The United States, under former President Barack Obama, had pledged under the Paris accord to cut greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 28% from 2005 levels by 2025 to help slow global warming.

In 2017, Trump had announced that the US would pull out from the pact saying that it would have been “a disaster for our country”. The president claimed that countries like China and India, which were leading polluters, were getting away with a deal that was partial to them. His decision drew criticism from many world leaders. The formal process of pulling out began on November 4 this year.

“...Trillions and trillions of dollars of destruction would have been done to our country with the Paris Climate Accord,” Trump added. “And it is so unfair. It doesn’t kick in for China until 2030. Russia goes back into the 1990s, where the base year was the dirtiest year ever in the world. India, we are supposed to pay them money because they are a developing nation.” He claimed the US was a developing nation too amidst laughter from the audience.

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