With the Amazon ‘on fire’, everybody expected the climate talks at the G-7 Summit this weekend to be particularly contentious, as leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron insisted that the international community must do something, while President Trump refused to support anything along those lines. But in a ‘symbolic’ gesture that was quickly seized upon by the media, President Trump skipped the G-7 session on climate change, giving photographers ample opportunity to snap photos of his empty chair.
And so, while Trump’s fellow world leaders were hashing out a “solution” to the fires in the Amazon (which, as we’ve explained, have been greatly exaggerated), Trump was elsewhere, talking to reporters about how he’s more focused on growing the “tremendous wealth” of the US.
“I feel that the United States has tremendous wealth. The wealth is under its feet. I’ve made that wealth come alive…We are now the No. 1 energy producer in the world, and soon it will be by far,” Trump told reporters when asked about his views on climate change.
“I’m not going to lose that wealth, I’m not going to lose it on dreams, on windmills, which frankly aren’t working too well,” he added.
Instead of attending the meetings on climate change, Trump held bilateral meetings on climate change with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Trump’s administration has reversed U.S. environmental protections put in place by his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama and has weakened the Endangered Species Act wildlife conservation law.
The Republican president skipped a session on climate change and biodiversity at the summit, instead holding bilateral meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Meanwhile, the G-7 leaders discussed the fires in the Amazon and ‘what is to be done.’
The G7 leaders discussed the rainforest fires in Brazil and agreed to draw up an initiative for the Amazon to be launched at the U.N. General Assembly in New York next month.
French President Emmanuel Macron downplayed Trump’s absence at the meeting, saying that, though the president wasn’t there, “his team was.”
“He wasn’t in the room, but his team was,” Macron said. “You shouldn’t read anything into the American president’s absence…The U.S. are with us on biodiversity and on the Amazon initiative.”
Trump added that he’s not going to squander the tremendous wealth that the energy has created “on windmills.”
“I’m not going to lose that wealth, I’m not going to lose it on dreams, on windmills, which frankly aren’t working too well,” he added.
Why waste money on wind turbines when all they do is cause cancer?
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