US Official "Exonerates" CO2 From Being Primary Contributor to Global Warming

The US Environmental Protection Agency's administrator "absolved" carbon dioxide from the status of being the primary factor of global warming.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Administrator Scott Pruitt of the US Environmental Protection Agency said in an interview on Thursday that carbon dioxide is not the main contributor to global warming, US media reported.

"I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there's tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it's a primary contributor to the global warming that we see," Pruitt stated in an interview on CNBC's Squawk Box.

Pruit added, "But we don't know that yet… We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis."

Pruitt's view and that of some scientists on the issue of carbon dioxide and global warming differs with the view held by both the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

In January NASA and NOAA said the planet's average surface temperature has gone up 2.0 degrees since the late 19th century.

US President Donald Trump said he is "not a big believer in manmade climate change". In 2012, long before his election campaign, he even said that "the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive."