Trump's hatred for renewables means the US is falling behind the rest of the world

"Six years after Donald Trump allegedly wrote a suggestive birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein, the current US president put his name to something that now seems almost as shocking: a letter calling for action on the climate crisis. In 2009 Trump, then a real estate developer and reality TV personality, was among a group of business leaders behind a full-page advertisement in the New York Times calling for legislation to control climate change, an immediate challenge facing the United States and the world today."

"The world continues to dawdle politically in its response to the climate crisis but clean energy is booming, responsible for almost all new energy capacity and drawing double the investment of fossil fuels globally. The market, as those business leaders from 2009 would now note, has shifted. Most starkly, though, Trump has become the planet's foremost advocate of fossil fuels, throwing the might of the US presidency into a rearguard battle to keep the world mired in the era of combusted carbon."

"When world leaders gather for UN climate talks in Brazil next month, the escalation of Trump's hostility towards climate action will be apparent. The US state department's office that deals with climate negotiations has been abolished as unnecessary, making it unclear who, if anyone, will represent the world's leading economic and military superpower in Belem. As in his first term, Trump has again withdrawn the US from the Paris climate deal,"

In 2009 Donald Trump joined business leaders in a New York Times full-page advertisement urging legislation to control climate change and US leadership on clean energy to avoid catastrophic consequences. Clean energy has since expanded rapidly, supplying most new capacity and attracting twice the investment of fossil fuels worldwide. As president Trump has reversed that stance, withdrawing the US from the Paris agreement, opening lands and waters to oil and gas drilling, dismantling clean-air protections, and abolishing the State Department climate office. Those policy shifts weaken US participation in UN climate talks and bolster fossil-fuel interests against global climate action.

Read at www.theguardian.com