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Monday, February 6th, 2017

Faced With U.S. Retreat on Climate, EU Looks to China

Author:     Alissa de Carbonnel
Source:     Climate Central
Publication Date:     February 4th, 2017
 Link: Faced With U.S. Retreat on Climate, EU Looks to China
Stephan:   Exactly as I predicted Trump's abdication of American leadership in climate change remediation has handed China the opportunity to take the reins of leadership on this critical issue. Trump and his close advisors are so inept that by the time the debacle of his administration is over he will have sabotaged and squandered precious geopolitical assets that took decades of work to attain by administrations of both parties.

Myron Ebell holds a speech at the Solvay library in Brussels, Belgium February 1, 2017.
Credit: Reuters/Yves Herman

Faced with a U.S. retreat from international efforts to tackle climate change, European Union officials are looking to China, fearing a leadership vacuum will embolden those within the bloc seeking to slow the fight against global warming.

While U.S. President Donald Trump has yet to act on campaign pledges to pull out of the 2015 Paris accord to cut greenhouse gas emissions, his swift action in other areas has sparked sharp words from usually measured EU bureaucrats.

When Trump’s former environment adviser, until the president’s inauguration this month, took to a stage in Brussels on Wednesday and called climate experts “urban imperialists”, a rebuke from Britain’s former energy minister drew applause from the crowd packed with EU officials.

But with fault lines over Brexit, dependence on Russian energy and protecting industry threatening the bloc’s own common policy, some EU diplomats worry Europe is too weak to lead on its own in tackling climate change.

Instead, they are pinning their hopes on […]

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