{"id":56544,"date":"2018-03-15T17:04:06","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T12:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=56544"},"modified":"2018-03-15T17:04:06","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T12:04:06","slug":"weathering-trumps-skepticism-u-s-officials-still-fighting-global-warming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=56544","title":{"rendered":"Weathering Trump’s skepticism, U.S. officials still fighting global warming"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0WASHINGTON\/OSLO March 15 (TNS):<\/strong> U.S. President Donald Trump has bashed international efforts to combat climate change and questioned the scientific consensus that global warming is dangerous and driven by human consumption of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

But there is a disconnect between what Trump says at home and what his government does abroad. While attention has been focused on Trump\u2019s rhetoric, State Department envoys, federal agencies, and government scientists remain active participants in international efforts to both research and fight climate change, according to U.S. and foreign representatives involved in those efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really don\u2019t detect any change with the Americans,\u201d said one of the officials, Aleksi H\u00e4rk\u00f6nen of Finland, who chairs the eight-nation Arctic Council\u2019s key group of senior officials, who are charged with protecting a region warming faster than any other on Earth.<\/p>\n

Over the past year, the United States has helped draft the rulebook for implementing the Paris climate accord, signed international memoranda calling for global action to fight climate change, boosted funding for overseas clean energy projects, and contributed to global research on the dangers and causes of the Earth\u2019s warming.<\/p>\n

While the United States\u2019 participation in international forums \u2013 including the Paris accord and the Arctic Council – has been reported, its continued, broad and constructive support for climate change efforts in these gatherings has not.<\/p>\n

This business-as-usual approach has surprised some of America\u2019s foreign partners, along with some of Trump\u2019s allies, who had expected the new administration to match its rhetoric with an obstructionist approach to combating climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am concerned that much of our climate policy remains on autopilot,\u201d complained Trump\u2019s former energy adviser Myron Ebell, now a research director at the right-leaning Competitive Enterprise Institute, who said it reflects a failure by the administration to fill key positions and replace staffers who oppose the president\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n

The U.S. efforts abroad to tackle climate change have been counter-balanced by Trump\u2019s aggressive push at home to increase production of the fossil fuels scientists blame for global warming. He has also ordered a wide-ranging rollback of Obama-era climate regulations and appointed a self-described climate skeptic, Scott Pruitt, as the nation\u2019s chief environmental regulator.<\/p>\n

And to be sure, none of the U.S. dealings in international climate efforts since last year have committed the United States to any emissions cuts that would undermine Trump\u2019s domestic energy agenda.<\/p>\n

The State Department \u2013 which handles the bulk of U.S. climate policy abroad – told Reuters it was still developing its global warming policy under Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe State Department is working with the White House and the interagency to further develop our approach to international climate change diplomacy,\u201d State Department spokesman Ambrose Sayles said in a statement before Trump sacked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the meantime, we will continue to participate … to ensure a level playing field that benefits and protects U.S. interests, and to keep all options open for the President,\u201d Sayles said.<\/p>\n

Tillerson\u2019s departure leaves a question mark over the future of U.S. climate policy abroad. Tillerson was in favor of the Paris accord, while his successor, Mike Pompeo, has expressed doubts about the science of climate change. Climate advocates say they hope Pompeo will be too distracted by tensions with Iran and North Korea to change the State Department\u2019s approach to climate change.<\/p>\n

White House spokeswoman Kelly Love declined to comment. TNS\/Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0WASHINGTON\/OSLO March 15 (TNS): U.S. President Donald Trump has bashed international efforts to combat climate change and questioned the scientific consensus that global warming is dangerous and driven by human consumption of fossil fuels. But there is a disconnect between what Trump says at home and what his government does abroad. While attention has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,303],"tags":[932,304],"class_list":["post-56544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-washington","tag-international","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56551,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56544\/revisions\/56551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}