The changing face of “climate leadership”

If anyone was still confused about President Trump’s position on green policies, his description of climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” at the UN General Assembly will surely have put any lingering doubts to bed. In contrast, although the shift in climate thinking on the other side of the Atlantic has been more subtle, increasing signs of division on climate policies amongst EU leaders are chipping away at the bloc’s reputation as a bastion of greenness. The upshot is that China – the dominant producer and exporter of green technology, but also somewhat paradoxically the world’s biggest coal user – is increasingly taking on the mantle as the global climate “leader”.