By Egufe Yafugborhi

Nigerian environmental scientist Prof Nsikak Benson has faulted United State (US) President, Donald Trump’s decision to revoke 2009 Greenhouse Endangerment Finding.

Prof Benson who has spent decades studying atmospheric contaminants and their public health impacts across continents said the recent decision by the Trump’s administration meant deliberate erasure of verifiable, reproducible, and globally observed data.

He stated, “The Trump administration’s decision to revoke the 2009 Endangerment Finding is not a policy disagreement, it is a complete abdication of scientific integrity. It is the deliberate erasure of verifiable, reproducible, and globally observed data.

“Greenhouse gases harm human health. This is not a Western opinion. It is a conclusion drawn from ice cores, satellite spectrometry, longitudinal cohort studies, and hospital intake records from the Sahel to the Gulf Coast.

“The link between greenhouse gas emissions and public health is not a theory. It is a forensic fact, confirmed by decades of empirical data from NASA, NOAA, the EPA, and peer-reviewed institutions worldwide.

“We know CO₂-driven warming expands the habitat of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. We know prolonged drought and heat stress compromise maternal health and child development in low-latitude nations.

“I have worked on over 30 years CO₂ deposition-emission data in the North Atlantic Ocean, we have measured black carbon deposition in the Arctic and measured the same particulates in the lungs of asthmatic children in Ota and Lagos. The atmosphere is indivisible. The pathology is shared.

“Carbon dioxide and methane trap heat. That trapped heat drives deadlier heat waves, expands the range of vector-borne diseases, and worsens ground-level ozone, sending children and the elderly to emergency rooms with acute respiratory failure. We have the mortality statistics,have the attribution studies.”

As a consequence, he noted, “To revoke this finding is to weaponise ignorance. It undermines the Clean Air Act’s scientific foundation and signals to the Global South that the health of our citizens is subordinate to industrial expediency.

“I advise relevant stakeholders locally and in the international community: Don’t treat this as domestic politics. This action sets a precedent that scientific facts may be dismissed by fiat especially by presidents of some developing countries.

“We must defend the evidentiary standards that underpin every climate and health protocol signed since 1992. The planet does not recognise executive orders. It responds only to concentrations of greenhouse gases.

“The atmosphere does not negotiate. It only accumulates. I urge political actors in the United States to consider reinstatement of the Endangerment Finding immediately.”

Prof Benson is a Top 2% Ranked Global Scientist, Member, American Chemical Society and a contributing author/reviewer to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports.