"G20 Summit: Dealing with Climate Change in the Age of Trump"

"As the world’s big emitters meet, their response to the G20 climate plan will be a barometer of their willingness to push back on Trump and fulfill the Paris accord."

"Leaders of the world's largest economic powers will have a chance this weekend to show whether President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement strengthened their resolve to act on climate change—or whether it opened cracks in their solidarity.

The G20 summit in Hamburg is the first top-level diplomatic gathering of all the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases since Trump's announcement, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the host, has pledged to put climate change high on the agenda.

'We cannot wait until every last person on Earth has been convinced of the scientific proof,' Merkel said in a speech last week.

Even though a host of other contentious issues—trade, migration, North Korea's nuclear ambitions, and the fraught relationship between the U.S. and Russia—are likely to get more attention, Merkel has virtually guaranteed that the meeting will include a litmus test on climate fortitude. After she assumed her one-year presidency of the G20 in December, she set up a sustainability working group that has developed a detailed policy roadmap for the nations to slash carbon emissions. That G20 action plan will be before the group in Hamburg. Together, the G20 countries are responsible for 80 percent of the world's greenhouse gas pollution."

Marianne Lavelle reports for InsideClimate News July 6, 2017.

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"World Leaders Braced For Tough Talks With Trump On Climate, Trade" (Reuters)