The Amazon rainforest fires may be horrifying the world, but that wasn’t enough to get President Trump to attend an urgent meeting on climate change at the G7 summit in France on Monday.
Other G7 leaders did go to the meeting, but Trump—whose team had reportedly wondered why the summit was focusing on “niche” issues like climate change—just sent staff. Guess he had other things on his mind.
Here’s Trump’s empty chair:
The White House said Trump had important meetings to attend with Germany and India, which is odd, since the leaders of Germany and India were...in the climate meeting.
When asked about it afterwards, Trump didn’t even seem to know the meeting had already happened:
The climate meeting ended with the summit promising $20 million to help fight the fires in the Amazon. It’s not the biggest sum, and it’s not like anyone came up with a plan to end climate change in the meeting. But Trump’s clear disdain for the meeting sends a pretty clear message about where his priorities lie.