Kerry: Trump climate deal threat ‘utter unbelievable contemptuous ignorance’

Secretary of State John Kerry lambasted any future president who would tear up the international climate agreement the U.S. signed in April.

“Ripping up the climate agreement that was reached in Paris would be reckless, counterproductive, self-destructive,” Kerry told MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Wednesday.

“It would be an act of extraordinary danger to our country because of the path it would put us on both in terms of our global leadership on the issue as well as the actual policies we need to implement and it would in the end be an act of ignorance, of utter unbelievable contemptuous ignorance to get rid of something that the world has worked for since 1992 in Rio,” Kerry continued.

The attack was an indirect warning for Donald Trump, who last week promised to back out of the accord if elected president.

Kerry cited climate statistics about the rising temperatures in the U.S. and around the world as evidence countries must move forward with plans to minimize practices that would raise the temperature.

“Somewhere people ought to be catching on to what is happening,” Kerry said.

The secretary pointed to more intense storms, larger rain falls, greater heat, crop migration and the increase of international refugees that are being created in various parts of the world as a result of lack of water or fights over food as the effects of climate change that Trump cannot ignore.

“To talk about just casually — without even understanding the work that has gone into it or the rationale for it — ripping it up would be one of the most reckless, irresponsible, historically wrong acts I can think of,” Kerry finished.

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