Following days of friendly handshakes and photo ops with President Trump during his state visit to the U.S., French President Emmanuel Macron shifted his tone during his address to a joint session of Congress Wednesday, taking jabs at Trump in four different areas.
Macron's focus: Trade wars, isolationism, the potential collapse of the Iran nuclear deal, and Trump's decision to exit the Paris climate accord.
French President Emmanuel Macron issued an implicit condemnation of President Trump's "America First" outlook to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday: "We can choose isolation, withdrawal, and nationalism … But closing the door to the world will not stop the evolution of the world.” He added later, "The United States is the one who invented this multilateralism. You are the one now who has to preserve and reinvent it."
The big picture: Though President Trump and Macron projected a jovial friendship during their time together in Washington this week, Macron came prepared to change Trump's isolationist mind on key global agreements, like the Paris climate agreement and Iran nuclear deal.
Kleiner Perkins’ green tech investors are back in business, this time with a spin out fund named G2VP. According to a SEC filing, it has closed nearly $300 million, which it began raising last year.
The backstory: A decade ago, Kleiner Perkins made a lot of headlines for the disappointing results of its enthusiastic clean-tech investing.
Speaking at an Axios event Tuesday, Al Gore likened climate change activism to a suite of other morally driven movements — such as gay rights and abolishing slavery — but sociology experts say climate is unique in a way that makes it harder to rally around.
Why it matters: For all the debate around climate change, Congress has never passed comprehensive legislation on the matter since it became a public concern decades ago. Climate is also not a top priority compared to other issues for most Americans.
Al Gore predicted at an Axios event Tuesday that President Trump won’t reverse course about withdrawing America from the Paris climate deal.
Why it matters: The insight from the former vice president and long-time climate activist offers a blunt state-of-play almost a year after Trump announced he would withdraw the U.S. from the Paris deal.
Companies including BP, Chevron and power giant Southern Company have formed a new coalition called the Energy Advance Center to work on carbon capture, storage and use.
Why it matters: Trapping CO2 from power plants and other industrial facilities is an important way to help eventually bring the steep emissions cuts needed to prevent the most dangerous levels of warming.
