I am a true environmentalist, but can't compromise on business: Trump

US President Donald Trump on Monday described himself a true environmentalist, but asserted that his administration's climate actions were not meant to put American businesses out of business.

"When you talk about the environment, I am truly an environmentalist," Trump told reporters in Florida when asked about a recent US research which says that climate change will make the strongest hurricanes even stronger.

Trump said that a lot of people smile when they hear him saying that he is truly an environmentalist.

"I have the cleanest air, and I'm going to have the cleanest air. But that doesn't mean we have to put every one of our businesses out of business. That doesn't mean that we can't compete or we're not allowed to compete with other nations that aren't doing what we're doing," he said.

"We're competing very well. Our nation is the hottest nation economically on the planet, by far, even though we're very big. I mean, we're up $10.7 trillion - $11.7 trillion, since I got elected. Nobody thought that would be possible," he said.

"Other nations -- as an example, China -- not that I wish this, but they're down many trillions of dollars. So we're doing really well, and I want to keep it that way," Trump said.

A day earlier, Trump in an interview with CBS News backed off from his previous claim that climate change is a hoax, but said that it's not man-made with permanent impacts and climate will "change back again".

On Monday, when asked about hurricanes and climate change, Trump said. "For a long period of time, we've had very few (storms). I have a home in Palm Beach Florida and frankly, for years, we had none and then, the last couple of years we had more. Hopefully, we'll go back to many years of having none."

In an interview with PBS News, former US Vice President Al Gore said that world is experiencing a global emergency due to changes in the earth's climate caused by human beings.

"What the scientists have warned us in this recent report is that if we do not take action quickly...then consequences down the road would be far, far worse than what we're experiencing now. Climate change could become an existential threat to civilisation," Gore told PBS News.