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President Trump failed to commit to remaining within the Paris climate agreement during a two-day meeting with world leaders that ended here Saturday, but he tweeted that he was still considering it and would announce a final decision “next week.” In a final communique, the Group of Seven industrialized countries said that the United States “is not in a position to join the consensus.” The other six members reaffirmed their commitment to swiftly implement the 2015 accord to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite heavy lobbying from G7 leaders, President Donald Trump declined to endorse the Paris Climate Agreement in a joint pledge of support for one of former President Barack Obama’s signature achievements in office. Trump’s decision upset world leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, desperate to convince the president of the agreement’s merits. “The Paris deal isn’t just any other deal. It is a key agreement that shapes today’s globalization,” Merkel said, describing discussions with Trump about climate change “very unsatisfying.” For opponents of the agreement, the decision is a welcome development after the president’s economic adviser, Gary Cohn, told reporters...

On Monday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced a resolution co-sponsored by Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) calling on the Trump administration to withdraw from the agreement. Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) introduced companion legislation in the House. “We are being asked to place more regulatory burdens on American businesses and our economy,” said Paul. “Despite the high cost, the agreement will do little to solve environmental challenges. I support a path forward that protects both our jobs and our environment instead of sacrificing one for the other.” On Wednesday,...

White House National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs banking executive, has reopened the U.S. government’s war on coal in direct contravention of directions from President Donald Trump. “Coal doesn’t even make that much sense anymore as a feedstock,” Cohn said in Europe on Air Force One, while speaking for the White House to the press, the New York Times’ Brad Plumer noted. “Natural gas, which we have become an abundant producer, which we’re going to become a major exporter is, is such a cleaner fuel,” Cohn continued. Cohn’s comments against the coal industry come as he...

President Donald Trump’s views on the Paris climate agreement are “evolving,” his chief economic adviser Gary Cohn told reporters today. “He came here to learn,” Cohn said. “So his views are evolving, which is exactly what they should be.” The president’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, then chimed in to say that the president’s decision about whether to remain in the agreement would ultimately be based on what’s best for the United States; Cohn concurred. “The basis for the decision is ultimately going to be what’s best for the United States,” Cohn said. The future of the United States’ involvement...

President Trump resisted some intense lobbying by leaders of other industrialized nations Friday to back the Paris climate-change agreement at a G-7 summit in Sicily, Italy. After hours of discussions, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni told reporters that the U.S. position on the Paris accord remains an “open question.” “All others have confirmed their total agreement on the accord,” he said of the leaders of Germany, Japan, Italy, Britain, France and Canada. Former President Barack Obama signed the Paris agreement to limit carbon emissions in 2015, but Mr. Trump is weighing a move to pull the U.S. out of the...

A United Nations report published Wednesday highlights the legal risks that opponents say President Donald Trump faces if he does not withdraw from Paris climate agreement. The Paris Agreement could be used to force governments, including the Trump administration, “that have adopted climate-oriented laws to implement them,” reads the UN Environmental Program report on global warming litigation. The report claims that litigation “has arguably never been a more important tool to push policymakers and market participants” to fight global warming. President Donald Trump promised to “cancel” the Paris Agreement on the campaign trail, but his White House is split on...

As summer approaches, let’s look at some comparisons and talk hurricanes. Let’s look at the past 10 summersMuch of the U.S. is around 1 degree Fahrenheit above normal on average. Another case of climate extremes? Yeah. Extremely beneficial. Keep in mind that Florida in the last 10 years is above normal and one or two tropical systems could reverse the current dry area very quickly.While there are some places 0.5-1 F below normal, much of the nation’s midsection is 2-4 F above normal, which means arguably it was warmer then than the past 10 summers. The point is that when...

Pope Francis put climate change on the agenda of his first meeting with President Trump on Wednesday, and the subject is likely to come up again and again in the president’s encounters with other world leaders in the coming days. That could put Mr. Trump on the back foot after what had been an energetic swing through the Middle East. The pope presented the president with a copy of his influential encyclical on preserving the environment, while in a broader meeting, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, urged Mr. Trump not to pull the United States out of...

Pope Francis on Wednesday gave President Trump a copy of his 2015 encyclical letter on the environment and climate change. Trump responded to the gifts by saying: "Well, I'll be reading them," according to pool reports. The Trump administration has been pushing to roll back Obama-era regulations on the environment. Trump on Wednesday met with Pope Francis at the Vatican. At the beginning of the meeting, the president said it was a "great honor" to be meeting with the pope. The meeting lasted about 30 minutes. Trump said after its conclusion that it was a "fantastic meeting." Trump in March...

Cussing their way back into power, two middle fingers at a time.: At the increasingly profane Democrat Party’s annual convention in California, the 84 year-old outgoing state party chairman, some guy named John Burton, closed out the proceedings by sticking both middle fingers in the air and leading gleeful party members in the chant of “F*** Donald Trump! F*** Donald Trump!” The fake national news media largely ignored the incident. Try to imagine the fake media outrage that would ensue if a state GOP party chair led a GOP convention in a chant of “F*** Barack Obama!”, or “F*** Hillary...

No more petrol or diesel cars, buses, or trucks will be sold anywhere in the world within eight years. The entire market for land transport will switch to electrification, leading to a collapse of oil prices and the demise of the petroleum industry as we have known it for a century. This is the futuristic forecast by Stanford University economist Tony Seba. His report, with the deceptively bland title Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030, has gone viral in green circles and is causing spasms of anxiety in the established industries. Seba’s premise is that people will stop driving altogether. They will switch...

n 2004, billions upon billions of shrimp-size insects took to the skies in the mid-Atlantic United States, covering entire houses, blaring extremely loud noises, and littering forests with their exoskeletons. When the swarm was finally over, the insects — cicadas — laid their eggs in the ground. Residents were told these creatures wouldn’t emerge again for another 17 years. The cicadas had other plans. Reports in Baltimore and the Washington, DC, metro area indicate that a small group of the cicadas — a group called Brood X — are emerging from the ground to molt, mate, and make noise. They...

On Monday, France elected former Socialist Party member Emmanuel Macron to be the nation’s next president, pushing Macron’s past promise to offer a home to all climate change scientists in America to the forefront of the ongoing debate over global warming. Macron, who has been described by many European and American news outlets as a “centrist,” is a noted believer in the theory humans are primarily responsible for climate change. In February, Macron posted a video on his Facebook page in which he invited all U.S. climate researchers to France to escape the Trump administration....

As a member of the Arctic Council, the United States has signed onto two agreements that include efforts to protect the Arctic from climate change, linking it to human activity and calling on global efforts to reduce its effects, including enforcement of the Paris Agreement. “The Arctic Council, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, has proven to be an indispensable forum in which we can pursue cooperation,” Tillerson said in remarks to the council. “I want to affirm that the United States will continue to be an active member in this council.”

The world's oceans close to being starved of oxygen - and even that could lead to mass sea life extinction which could last a million years. University of Exeter scientists fear the modern ocean is 'on the edge of anoxia' - when the oceans are depleted of oxygen. [snip] Lead researcher PhD student Sarah Baker said it was now 'critical' for modern humans to limit carbon emissions to prevent this.

The company once hailed as Europe’s largest solar panel producer filed for bankruptcy Wednesday, blaming cheap Chinese panels for flooding the market. “The ongoing price erosion and the development of the business” has left the company “over-indebted and thus obliged to file for insolvency proceedings,” SolarWorld, which is also the largest U.S. solar panel maker, said in a statement. The filing comes after SolarWorld was forced to lay off employees earlier this year. The company employs around 3,000 people, including 800 in Hillsboro, Oregon, and was one of the few German-based solar companies to survive a recent market downturn. SolarWorld...

Like dandelions, UN climate treaties must be pulled out by the roots If President Donald Trump merely pulls the United States out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, it will be like cutting the head off a dandelion. It will look good for a while until equally bad agreements quickly grow back when a Democrat occupies the White House again. Trump needs to dig up the roots of Paris—the 1992 U.N. climate treaty—if he is to keep his campaign promise to “stop all payments of the United States tax dollars to UN global warming programs.” Trump can, and should,...

It seems like Obama has taken a page out of Leonardo DiCaprio's book of “do as I say, not as I do” and took a private jet to Milan. Not only that, he had a 14 car convoy to get into the city, which also included protection from above with a helicopter.

Former President Barack Obama returned to his gospel of climate change alarmism, preaching to Italians in Milan about the impending doom facing the planet. “When it comes to climate change, the hour is almost upon us,” he warned, urging the world to “set aside our parochial differences” to create a better planet for the world’s children. The former president spoke at the “Seeds and Chips” global innovation summit on food, but Obama used the occasion to focus on his climate change agenda and his signature Obamacare legislation. “If we seize the future, there is nothing that we cannot do …...