US President Donald Trump on Thursday accused China, India and Russia of not taking care of their filthy air as he justified America's withdrawal from the landmark Paris climate agreement. "Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia. Look at India. It is filthy. The air is filthy," Trump said, during the final presidential debate with his Democratic challenger Joe Biden in Nashville, Tennessee.
"I walked out of the Paris Accord as we had to take out trillions of dollars and we were treated very unfairly," he said in response to a question on climate change. Trump has repeatedly blamed countries like India and China for not doing enough on climate change, labelling them as regions with air that is impossible to breathe.
In 2017, Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, saying the international deal to keep global temperatures rises below 2 degree Celsius was disadvantageous to US workers. He has continuously argued that countries like China and India are benefiting the most from the Paris agreement.
Speaking to his cheering supporters at an election rally in the key battleground State of North Carolina last week, Trump had blamed countries like China, Russia and India for adding to the global air pollution.
"We have the best environmental numbers, ozone numbers, and so many other numbers. In the meantime, China, Russia, India all these countries they're spewing stuff into the air, he alleged during the rally. China is the world's biggest carbon emitter followed by the US, India and the EU.
Watch Trump’s remarks against India here:
On Thursday night, Biden and Trump clashed during the second and final presidential debate that was moderated by NBC's Kristen Welker in Nashville, Tennessee. A planned second debate on October15 was cancelled after 74-year-old Trump refused to do a virtual face-off with 77-year-old Biden despite concerns over the president's COVID-19 diagnosis. The two rivals instead attended town halls on competing television networks.
Trump and Biden fiercely clashed over a number of issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic, racism, economy and climate, during the first presidential debate last month, marked by angry interruptions and bitter accusations. The one-off debate between the vice presidential candidates Mike Pence and Kamala Harris had taken place on October 7 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
On Monday, the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates announced new rules under which it will mute microphones for two minutes of the rival speakers so as to give them uninterrupted opening remarks during the final debate being held in Nashville,Tennessee. The decision to mute microphones comes after a chaotic first presidential debate that saw the two candidates interrupting each other repeatedly. Under the new rules, Trump and Biden had two minutes of uninterrupted time to speak at the beginning of every 15-minute segment of the debate. The commission said both campaigns have agreed to the two-minute, uninterrupted rule.