US Energy Secretary Chris Wright pushed back against climate change hysteria as he promoted Washington's return to a commonsense energy policy on Thursday, while the Trump administration worked to boost oil and gas sales to Europe and other allies.
Wright spoke to reporters after meeting the European Union's energy commissioner Dan Jorgensen in Brussels. US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has also been in Europe this week aiming to seal energy supply deals that Washington hopes will strengthen its influence in the region while weakening Russia's.
Wright said the benefits of stable energy from fossil fuels offset any risks, adding that the rise of natural gas production was the "biggest driver of decarbonisation" in the United States, which is rolling back on heavily--subsidised renewables projects such as offshore windfarms.
Wright questioned the urgency of climate change and its impact on human life.
"We kind of struggle to find what is it from climate change that's causing greater risks to humans," he said. "A warmer, wetter world is more conducive to growing crops."
Wright pointed out there was no upward or downward trend in the frequency of extreme weather events, and that protections offered by petrochemicals, such as clothing and heating, meant deaths from such events had fallen over time.
"The impact of hydrocarbons, I would say, has been massively larger at making safer, longer, healthier lives. It's causing some warming, but is the net impact of hydrocarbon consumption to endanger humans?" Wright added.
David Doniger, a senior attorney at New York-based environmental activist group the Natural Resources Defence Council, said the secretary should lead the way to an abundance of "cleaner" energy that can meet economic objectives without destroying the climate.
"The secretary of energy should not be a salesman for one kind of energy, either to Americans or to the rest of the world," Doniger added, in a bizarrely hypocritical statement.
(Reporting by Julia Payne and Timothy Gardner; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)