Add it up. Trump and Putin skip Merkel's meetings about climate change, but meet together
for longer than planned, along with Tillerson: Mr Drill for More Oil, preferably in partnership with Russia.
Even Melania managed to miss the spouse's climate change info tour, being 'kept from going' by protests.
Then, Putin seems to speak for United States on climate policy.
And where is Trump when he's not enthusiastically meeting with Putin? He's alternately spacing out during presentations he did attend or pouting by himself at the table.
Some snippets from a few reports:
http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/07/melania-trump-donald-trump-vladimir-putin-g20-meeting
Donald Trump had his highly anticipated meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, on Friday, talking to the Russian leader for two hours and 16 minutes, well over their appointed half-hour. Trump pressed Putin on the topic of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election, and the two also discussed North Korea, according to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was in the room during the meeting, along with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The two leaders were apparently so engrossed in conversation that First Lady Melania Trump attempted to get them to wrap up the conversation but was unsuccessful.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/g20-hamburg-trudeau-1.4194345
Merkel scheduled a tour of the German climate change centre in Hamburg for G20 spouses. The centre uses supercomputers to model climate change impacts around the world and First Lady Melania Trump was to have been part of it.
However Melania was unable to leave the residence where she was staying Friday thanks to violent protests which have left hundreds injured and required the Germans to call in even more than the 20,000 police initially on hand to try and keep the peace.
Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin weren't part of the Friday afternoon discussion on climate change.
Their much-anticipated first official bilateral meeting since Trump took office was planned at the same time, leaving German officials frustrated and angry.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/08/europe/g20-merkel-trump-communique/index.html
Officials had been at an impasse over an increasingly isolationist United States and Trump's climate change and trade policies for most of the summit, and Merkel made it clear the United States had made talks difficult.
"Unfortunately -- and I deplore this -- the United States of America left the climate agreement, or rather announced their intention of doing this," Merkel said as she closed the summit and presented a G20 declaration.
~~~
After the summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin called climate change a "major issue" and said Merkel had reached a "good compromise."
"Although the US will withdraw, they are nevertheless still prepared to carry on now (with) discussions on this subject. It seems to me this is a very positive point and can be chalked up to the successes of Angela Merkel," Putin said.
