(BIARRITZ, France) — U.S. President Donald Trump skipped a discussion on climate with other world leaders at the Group of Seven summit in France, leaving an empty chair as global power brokers debated how to help the fire-ravaged Amazon and reduce carbon emissions.

Trump was scheduled to attend Monday’s session on climate, biodiversity and oceans at the G-7 summit in Biarritz, but didn’t. French President Emmanuel Macron, the summit host, said Trump’s aides were there instead. Trump is a climate change skeptic who once had claimed it’s a hoax that was invented by the Chinese. His decision to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris climate accord has severely damaged global efforts to reduce emissions.

Trump started the morning behind schedule, and held one-on-one meetings while others were in the climate discussions. However, one of his interlocutors, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, managed to make it to the climate meeting.

Trump then met with India’s Prime Minister Narendr..

(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump said he doesn’t expect to make money if the U.S. hosts next year’s Group of Seven summit at his Trump Doral golf resort, even as he delivered an extended sales pitch to hold the meeting at his Miami property.

“Each country can have their own villa, or their own bungalow” if the meeting is at Doral, Trump said Monday at the end of the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France. The U.S. is next in the rotation to host the annual meeting of world leaders, which will occur in the middle of the 2020 presidential campaign. “I don’t want to make any money,” said Trump.

Earlier in the day, Trump ticked off advantages of holding a global summit in the Sunshine State of Florida. “It’s very big,” and it’s Miami, “so it’s a great area.” He told German Chancellor Angela Merkel, sitting next to him, that she’d have just a three-minute helicopter ride from the airport to the site.

“People are really liking it,” Trump said.

Joe Raedle—Getty ImagesThe front entrance to the..

For years, leaders in the fight against climate change have sought to use international trade as a weapon, pushing world leaders to penalize countries that aren’t stemming warming emissions by restricting trade with them on the global market. But for the most part, the measures have gained little traction.

Last week, that changed. As tens of thousands of fires engulfed the Amazon, the European Union threatened to block a landmark trade deal with Brazil and ban imports of Brazilian beef if the country’s right-wing leader, Jair Bolsonaro, didn’t act. Within days of the threat, and as G-7 leaders prepared to discuss the matter in France, Bolsonaro buckled, abandoning his passive approach to the crisis and sending more than 40,000 troops to fight the fires.

The trade fight over the Amazon represents a little noticed, but important development in the fight against climate change. As countries diverge in their efforts to combat climate change, with some expending significant resources and ..

A mass of floating pumice so large it’s being tracked via satellite is making its way to Australia, and with it a range of marine organisms including corals that could help restore the threatened Great Barrier Reef.

The giant sheet of rock — around 58 square miles — is the result of an underwater volcanic eruption near the Pacific archipelago of Tonga two weeks ago, Australia’s ABC News reports.

“We’re going to have millions of individual corals and lots of other organisms all coming in together with the potential of finding new homes along our coastline,” Queensland University of Technology geologist Associate Professor Scott Bryan said.

Barnacles, corals, crabs and snails are among the organisms Bryan said will hitch a ride on the pumice “raft” when it washes up along Australia’s coastline in less than a year. “[The raft] is a natural mechanism for species to colonize, restock and grow in a new environment,” he added.

The world’s largest coral reef, home to a variety of marine li..

On the afternoon of Aug. 19, the sky over São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, went dark. A cold front combined with ash from forest fires in the Amazon rainforest and formed ominous clouds that blocked out the sun. Photos of the blackened sky began to pop on Twitter, and soon the world was paying attention to the blazes rampaging across the forest called “the lungs of the world.” Many blame President Jair Bolsonaro’s rhetoric as the central factor in the crisis. Less obvious are the ways the conflagration stems from years of slashing government budgets for the environment and dismantling support for indigenous and traditional subsistence communities.

For example, Bolsonaro’s predecessor, Michel Temer, reorganized the government and wielded his budget scissors liberally. Temer downgraded a ministry focused on supporting sustainable family farms and chopped funds for environmental protections and science. In 2017, Temer cut the federal science budget by 44% and took nearly the same amount..

BIARRITZ, France — G-7 countries have agreed to an immediate $20 million fund to help Amazon countries fight wildfires and launch a long-term global initiative to protect the rainforest.

The announcement came from French President Emmanuel Macron, the host of this year’s meeting of G-7 leaders, and the Chilean President Sebastián Piñera. Macron said that the Amazon represents the “lungs” of the planet and that leaders were studying the possibility of similar support in Africa, also suffering from fires in its rainforests.

Macron said the U.S. supported the initiative, although he acknowledged that U.S. President Donald Trump had skipped Monday’s working session on the environment.

Satellites have recorded more than 41,000 fires in the Amazon region so far this year — with more than half of those coming this month alone. Experts say most of the fires are set by farmers or ranchers clearing existing farmland.