CLIMATE CHANGE LEADERSHIP?

When President Trump announced in June that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, America officially ceded its global leadership to climate change.

The retreat had actually begun months earlier, when climate change disappeared from most    government websites and vanished  from America's domestic and international agendas.

No longer would the United States  federal government address climate change at home or raise global warming with ministers and heads of state, as former President Barack Obama and his cabinet routinely did.

It was a dramatic and it was meant to be, writes author, Lisa Friedman.

''I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,'' Mr. Trump said repudiating the accord.

''The Paris climate accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that  disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries.''

Since then, others have taken up the climate leadership role in Europe.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France have vowed that the Paris Agreement will flourish without the United States.

President Xi Jinping of China and the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, are promoting their countries as climate change champions.