An environmental organization hired by The Trump Organization is using climate change to obtain permission to build a coastal wall to protect Donald Trump’s golf course in Ireland.
The beachfront golf course, Trump International Golf Links & Hotel in Clare County, is threatened by sand dune erosion due to severe storms.
The Trump Organization, which manages Trump’s ventures and investments, is seeking permission from the Clare County Council to build a stone wall along the beach to mitigate erosion.
The wall is supposed to be two miles long and made of 200,000 tons of rock.
A permit application for the wall included an impact statement prepared by an Irish environmental group and uses climate change as part of the argument for the wall, according to Politico.
“If the predictions of an increase in sea level rise as a result of global warming prove correct, however, it is likely that there will be a corresponding increase in coastal erosion rates not just in Doughmore Bay but around much of the coastline of Ireland,” Politico cited the impact statement.
“In our view, it could reasonably be expected that the rate of sea level rise might become twice of that presently occurring. … As a result, we would expect the rate of dune recession to increase.”
It also mentions climate change in an argument about changes in storm activity.
“As with other predictions of global warming and its effects, there is no universal consensus regarding changes in these events,” it stated. “Our advice is to assume that the recent average rate of dune recession will not alter greatly in the next few decades, perhaps as far into the future as 2050 as assumed in the [government study] but that subsequently an increase in this rate is more likely than not.”
Trump has used dismissive language when mentioning climate change on Twitter, calling it a “canard” or a “hoax.”
When addressing the issue in more detail, Trump has said, on different occasions that fighting with climate change is costly for the United States and gives economic advantage to countries that are “doing nothing about it,” especially China, the world’s largest CO2 producer.
China produced 30 percent of global CO2 emissions in 2014, while the United States was second with 15 percent.
At least once Trump said there may be a man-induced effect on climate change, but in a context that made it clear he doesn’t consider countering climate change a priority.
“I consider climate change to be not one of our big problems. I consider it not a big problem at all. I think it’s weather. I think it’s weather changes. There could be some man-made something, but, you know, if you look at China, they’re doing nothing about it, other countries are doing nothing about it. It’s a big planet,” Trump said on MSNBC Morning Joe on Sept. 17, 2015.
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