One US political event has been dominating headlines this week; the state visit of president Trump to the UK.
Before Air Force One had even touched down at Stansted, a political war of words was erupting over US policy, trade tariffs and the environment.
Activist and former vice president Al Gore accused the Trump administration of “bullying” countries to abandon their climate-related policies, by linking them to trade deals.
According to Financial Times reporting, Gore said: “We have seen, just in the last week, a tour of Europe by a couple of the Trump officials trying to put pressure on other nations to change their policies and goals.”
Meanwhile, Politico reported that an official said the danger posed by global warming was "overhyped."
At the same time, major media across Europe reported that excessive heat caused by global warming may have caused 16,500 extra deaths — two thirds of the total — across the continent this summer.
Gore, a long-time climate activist and Trump critic, has already declared that global action to counter climate change was now inevitable, regardless of the US stance on it.
The fresh accusations, that tariff leverage was being used specifically to encourage a climbdown of Europe’s green transition, are a new twist.
Meanwhile, as the President was receiving the full effects of both British pageantry and protest, New York was preparing for next week’s Climate Week events — which are set to throw a further spotlight on worldwide action and the part the US is, and isn’t, playing in it.
While the soundbites such as “drill baby drill” and not liking “windmills” form much of the public perception of the President’s views on environmental policy, the picture behind that has been both growing and becoming clearer in recent months.
As The Economist noted recently: “Already the world has warmed by nearly 1.5°C from pre-industrial levels, and the consequences are upon us. Global economic losses from weather-related extreme events are estimated at over $220bn a year, while declines in labour productivity due to exposure to extreme heat are reckoned to cost over $830bn a year. The consequences will grow only more severe.
“Instead, the Trump administration intends to send the climate scientists packing and to shutter research and data-gathering activities. The whole world will pay a price for this recalcitrance, not least America.”
Companies across Europe have, of course, been grappling with the nature and scale of tariffs introduced on US imports this year, and the shifts and deals that have since transpired.
Many will have absorbed the impact, while avoiding becoming a target for Trump’s ire.
Leaning on Europe directly and financially to change environmental policies could be a different kettle of fish though.
Businesses — and their shareholders and stakeholders — may need to find an uncomfortable balance between the relative short-term pressures of the current presidency and the longer-term economic transition that many have invested much in, and see as key to their futures.
