World Leaders Move Forward on Climate Change, Without U.S.
Trump said that Nothing’s easy,
President Emmanuel Macron of France said he would continue to press Mr. Trump on climate
and would hold a follow-up summit meeting in Paris in December to move the Paris deal forward.
By STEVEN ERLANGER, ALISON SMALE, LISA FRIEDMAN and JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVISJULY 8, 2017
HAMBURG, Germany — World leaders struck a compromise on Saturday to move forward collectively on climate change without the United
States, declaring the Paris accord "irreversible" while acknowledging President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement.
It then nods toward fossil fuels, saying: "The United States of America states it will endeavor to work closely with other countries to help them access and use fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently." Mr. Trump, who spent so much time with Mr. Putin on Friday
that he delayed meeting the British prime minister, Theresa May, until Saturday, tried to fortify her delicate political fortunes.
The statement and the adoption of the G20 Climate and Energy Action Plan for Growth ended three days of intense negotiations over how to characterize the world’s response to Mr. Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement,
and it came as this year’s meeting of major world economies here laid bare the stark divide between the United States and the rest.
Also on Saturday, American officials said that Mr. Trump would order the State Department to redirect $50 million from its foreign-aid budget to
a new international public-private partnership to aid midsize businesses run by women, a group that his daughter Ivanka Trump helped create.
He said that they had had "tremendous talks" on trade and were working on a "very powerful" trade deal for a post-"Brexit" Britain
that could be completed "very, very quickly." It is not clear what Mr. Trump meant, since the two sides cannot sign such an agreement until after Britain leaves the European Union, in March 2019 at the soonest.