Will Theresa May Tackle Trump on Climate?

UK prime minister Theresa May is packing her bags – she’ll be in Washington DC to meet the new man in the White House this coming Friday.

Downing Street won’t say if climate change will make the talking points when May meets Trump – but in an interview on the BBC on Sunday she said trade and security would feature.

“I will be talking to Donald Trump about the issues we share and how we can build on the special relationship,” she said.  “It is the special relationship that allows us to say when something is unacceptable.

“Whenever there is something I find unacceptable, I won’t be afraid to say that to Donald Trump.”

Foreign leaders Trump has already spoken to include Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto.

ICYM – Team Trump did not wait long to make their mark.
Soon after the bronzed billionaire made his inaugural address the White House website underwent a rapid re-vamp, losing all references to climate change.

Instead a series of pledges to erase Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, support so-called clean coal and reduce “burdensome regulations” were listed as priorities.

California’s climate plan
With impeccable timing California released its own climate plan on Friday:  aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.

Here’s the basics from a press release:

“The proposed plan continues the Cap-and-Trade Program through 2030 and includes a new approach to reduce greenhouse gases from refineries by 20 percent.  It incorporates approaches to cutting super pollutants from the Short Lived Climate Pollutants Strategy.  And it acknowledges the need for reducing emissions in agriculture and highlights the work underway to ensure that California’s natural and working lands increasingly sequester carbon.”

UK industrial plan
The government will deliver a  draft set of proposals for a new industrial strategy on Monday – which will offer a sense of how green this government’s thinking is.

Here’s May’s spiel in the pre-launch bumpf:  “Our modern Industrial Strategy is a critical part of our plan for post-Brexit Britain.  As we leave the EU it will help us grasp the bigger prize:  the chance to build that stronger, fairer Britain that stands tall in the world and is set up to succeed in the long-term.”
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Healthy journalism
... The medical journal The Lancet has just officially announced this month that it is launching The Lancet Planetary Health, a new online open access title looking specifically at the intersection of climate and environmental issues with health.

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