U.S. CLIMATE SCEPTICISM CLOUDS G20 MEET

Environmental activists slam US threat to pull out of Paris accord

AFTER threatening environmental financing with the axe, United States President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday defied the international community by refusing to renew a pledge on combating climate change.

Finance ministers from the G20 top economies meeting in the western spa town here were forced to leave out an entire section related to the Paris accord on combating climate change, after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said green issues were “not in my track”.

Environmental activists condemned the decision, slamming the world’s biggest economy for “keeping ambitions down”.

Trump, who once claimed that climate change was a Chinese hoax, has said he would roll back American environmental regulations aimed at curbing the problem and has threatened to pull the US out of the Paris accord on combating climate change.

In his first national budget on Thursday, he proposed a drastic cut in environmental financing, including slashing funds for the Environmental Protection Agency by a third, as well as eliminating contributions linked to United Nations climate change programmes. AFP

EPA PIC Participants in a ‘No G20’ demonstration break through a wall of black cartons on a street in BadenBaden, Germany, on Saturday.