Trump announced plans to slash the size of Bears Ears national monument in Utah. /Photograph: Andrew Cullen/Reuters
Trump’s administration has pursued cuts in environmental protections that are critical to the health of all Americans
By Miranda Bryant | The Guardian
Donald Trump is set to hail his administration’s “environmental leadership” on Monday in a speech in which he is expected to declare the US a world leader on the issue.
But since taking office two and a half years ago, the US president has been at the helm of an administration that has pursued numerous cuts in environmental protections and last year saw a rise in greenhouse gases of 3.4% – the biggest rise in emissions since 2010.
He has also regularly publicly aired his doubts over the existence of climate change – previously calling it a “hoax”, suggesting that the climate could “change back again” and falsely claiming it was a phenomenon invented by China.
A report by the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at New York University’s school of law published in March said the Trump administration had “set its sights on watering down or outright repealing a half-dozen health and environmental rules critical to the health and welfare of all Americans as well as the planet”.
Here are five of the biggest environmental setbacks under Trump:
