KATOWICE, Poland — President Trump’s focus on cleaner fossil fuels and nuclear power is shared by other nations, a top White House official said at a major climate-change conference Monday.
Driving the news: The Trump administration hosted an event Monday that included comments from the U.S. and Australian governments on the importance of making fossil fuels cleaner and also including nuclear power, which emits no carbon dioxide but is nonetheless controversial for its radioactive footprint.
The big energy market news over the weekend was OPEC and Russia agreeing in Vienna Friday to curb output by 1.2 million barrels per day compared to October levels.
Why it matters: The decision to curb output starting in January quickly boosted prices a bit, though they remain far below where they were 2 months ago.
KATOWICE, Poland — In theory, President Trump could lead hard but necessary negotiations at a climate conference here about the realities of the world’s significant dependence on fossil fuels and their role in warming the planet. But that’s not going to happen.
Driving the news: With Trump and his top advisers not acknowledging that humans are driving global temperatures up, and instead promoting coal and other fossil fuels full stop, a side event they’re hosting today will ring hollow and deepen the divide over energy and climate change.
A sobering new piece in the journal Nature finds that October's dire UN science report about the ongoing and future effects of climate change may have actually underestimated the pace of global warming.
Why it matters: The new analysis, if borne out, widens what's already a huge gulf between the expected human and ecological toll from high levels and rapid rates of warming and the failure of governments worldwide to bring about the steep carbon emissions cuts that could prevent runaway temperature increases.
Why it matters, per Axios science editor Andrew Freedman: In the climate talks, individual words can take on outsized importance. The United States' alignment with the countries is striking as it illustrates the extent to which the country has moved away from its leadership position on this issue, and is actually helping to slow progress in the talks.
Ohio continues its efforts to attract cryptocurrency entrepreneurs with $100 million in new funding for startups, but that's not all of the important industry news this week.
The French "yellow jackets" were at it again Saturday, but with less steam after president Emmanuel Macron suspended a new tax on fuel that was scheduled to start in January.
By the numbers, per the BBC: Roughly 125,000 people marched on Saturday. More than 1,700 were arrested. "Nearly 90,000 officers had been deployed, including 8,000 in Paris... Around 10,000 people demonstrated in the capital, where the scenes were the most destructive."
