The White House is making the case that several big countries are having doubts about the Paris climate deal — even as the weekend brought a stark sign of U.S. isolation.
Why it matters: The administration's claims of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Russia having second thoughts about the Paris deal came just ahead of a UN summit kicking off in Poland this week focused on implementing the 2015 agreement.
Details: The missing count has been halved since Friday when 49 people were listed as missing, according to a statement from the Butte County Sheriff Department. And, as the L.A. Times reported last month, the missing list was filled with duplicates and misspellings at its peak. The death toll from the fire, which is now contained, stands at 88.
President Trump's status as one of the last holdouts on climate change has been decades in the making. And now the world is seeing the results.
What's happening: When the G20 leaders put out their statement Saturday reaffirming their commitment to the Paris climate accord, the United States was the only nation that didn't sign it. Trump has said he will withdraw from the deal, but he technically can’t until 2020 — in fact, the day after the presidential election. And Trump and his top aides have been disputing their own government’s report on climate change to a remarkable degree.
In a joint declaration released Saturday, leaders of G20 nations reaffirmed their commitment to fighting climate change by upholding the Paris Agreement — with the exception of the U.S.
The United States reiterates its decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, and affirms its strong commitment to economic growth and energy access and security, utilizing all sources and technologies, while protecting the environment.
— G20 communique
Between the lines: The Trump administration's position on the Paris Agreement is well known, and a similar clause was included in the communique from last year's G20 summit in Hamburg. But a senior White House official told reporters that the Paris climate section was one of the last issues to be settled "because the countries who typically might agree couldn't agree with each other." Countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Russia might be starting to second-guess their commitment to a multilateral approach to climate change, the official said.
At least 65 people, including 11 police officers, have been injured during mass protests in Paris over President Emmanuel Macron's fiscal policies, including his decision to increase gas taxes, the AP reports.
The big picture: This is the third straight weekend that "yellow vests" — so-called because of the jackets they must don to be permitted to block roads — have turned out to demonstrate against Macron, whose approval rating has plummeted to 26%. Authorities say more than 5,000 people gathered around the Champs-Elysees avenue to protest Saturday, with rare spurts of violence against police officers leading to 140 arrests.
Teslas and other electric vehicles in China constantly send information about the precise location of cars to the government, AP's Erika Kinetz reports.
Why it matters: The data adds "to the rich kit of surveillance tools available to the Chinese government as President Xi Jinping steps up the use of technology to track Chinese citizens."
Yet again, energy experts have gotten the oil market wrong: Less than two months ago, Brent crude was about $86 a barrel, and the talk was a certain return to ultra-profitable $100 oil. Today, Brent closed at $58.68, down 31% from the peak, after the industry's worst two months in a decade.
Oil's biggest kingpins are now at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, where they will try to set things right. But if they can't — for reasons including pressure from President Trump and their own divisiveness — look for a renewed bloodbath in oil, with danger for the world's petro-states and numerous other industries.
