'Can't breathe in certain cities': Trump blames India, China for air pollution

LONDON: United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday blamed India, China and Russia for pollution while claiming that his own country has among the "cleanest climates".

"China, India, Russia, many other nations, they have not very good air, not very good water, and the sense of pollution and cleanliness," Trump told ITV's Good Morning Britain show while discussing the World Environment Day. It was also the last day of his UK visit.

"If you go to certain cities – I'm not going to name cities but I can – you can't even breathe, and now that air is going up...They don't do the responsibility."

Trump also said that he was awestruck by Prince Charles's passion for fighting climate change and that he also wanted a world that is "good for future generations".

Trump has rolled back environmental regulations and pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord since his surprise election in 2016.

But the mercurial White House chief said he was impressed with Prince Charles's commitment to green causes when he had tea with the heir to the British throne at Buckingham Palace on his arrival for a three-day state visit Monday.

Trump told ITV in an interview aired Wednesday that Queen Elizabeth II's son dominated the conversation with climate talk.

"We were going to have a 15-minute chat. And it turned out to be an hour and a half. And he did most of the talking. He is really into climate change, and I think that's great, I mean I want that, I like that," Trump said.

"He wants to have a world that is good for future generations and I want that to."

But he also stuck up for his own management of environmental policies.

"I did mention a couple of things, I did say, 'Well the United States right now has among the cleanest climates there are, based on all statistics, and it's even getting better'," Trump said.

A widely-cited report released by the Rhodium Group in January found that US carbon dioxide emissions rose by 3.4 per cent in 2018.

The increase was the biggest in eight years.

Prince Charles has spent many years bucking UK conventions that frown on members of the royal family sticking up for political causes.

His environmental activism has seen the 70-year-old modify his Aston Martin so that it can run on a fuel mixture that includes white wine.

He also told The Daily Telegraph last year that he tried to run the royal train on recycled cooking oil.

"But I don't know," the prince told the paper.

"They say it clogs up the engine or something."