What you'll hear at Trump's climate event

I spoke with two of the panelists beforehand. Here's what they had to say:

• "We wanted to participate at," the conference, said Lenka Kollar is the Director of Business Strategy at NuScale Power, an advanced nuclear power company. "The U.S. is giving us a platform to speak about some of these seemingly less popular technologies at" at the conference.
• "I know that some have raised an eyebrow about Obama's energy envoy speaking at this event," said Amos Hochstein, former top State Department energy official in the Obama administration and now a top executive at Tellurian, a company working to export liquefied natural gas from the U.S. "But, I believe any opportunity to have an honest conversation about how we can have a realistic approach to reducing emissions should be embraced."

Protests are not only expected, they're planned for. With two environmental groups — 350.org and Climate Action Network — working as intermediaries between the groups expected to protest and the U.N. organizers. Jamie Henn, spokesman for 350.org, said they were involved to "make sure both can happen in the same space."

Go deeper: Check out my latest Harder Line column, published today, for some reality checking on the Trump administration's embrace of cleaner fossil fuels and nuclear power.