Trump 'will definitely pull out of Paris climate change deal'

Trump 'will definitely pull out of Paris climate change deal'

Warning comes from the former head of the US President's transition team at the Environmental Protection Agency

Tom Batchelor 2 hours ago

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-paris-climate-change-deal-myron-ebell-us-president-america-pull-out-agreement-a7553676.html

A former climate change adviser to Donald Trump has said the US President will pull America out of the landmark Paris agreement and an executive order on the issue could come within “days”.

Myron Ebell, who took charge of Mr Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team, said the President was determined to undo policies pushed by Barack Obama to restrict greenhouse gas emissions.

He said the US would "clearly change its course on climate policy" under the new administration and claimed Mr Trump was "pretty clear that the problem or the crisis has been overblown and overstated".

“I expect Donald Trump to be very assiduous in keeping his promises, despite all of the flack he is going to get from his opponents,” he told a briefing in London.

“He could do it by executive order tomorrow, or he could wait and do it as part of a larger package. There are multiple ways and I have no idea of the timing.”

Mr Ebell, a long-standing climate sceptic, was employed by the Trump team last September to review the EPA and worked for the Republican billionaire until his inauguration on 20 January.

Mr Trump, who has previously called climate change a hoax invented by the Chinese, promised a raft of policies during his campaign including to undo Obama’s climate action plan and defund UN climate change work.

The Paris agreement, successor to the Kyoto Protocols, aims to "stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system".

In November, two weeks after his election victory, Mr Trump said he had an "open mind" on the climate deal, which was drafted at the end of 2015 and signed on the 22 April 2016.

The agreement has 194 signatories, including the US.

Mr Ebell, who has criticised the "alarmist agenda" of the climate change lobby, said any efforts by Mr Trump's new Secretary of State to keep the US in the Paris deal would be futile.

Rex Tillerson, a former ExxonMobil chief executive, acknowledged the existence of climate change during his recent Senate hearing.

rex-tillerson-2.jpg

Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington DC at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (AP)

Asked about the Paris deal, he said: "I think it’s 190 countries have signed on. We’re better served by being at that table than by leaving that table.”

However, speaking on Monday afternoon at an event hosted by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which itself is accused of denying the damaging impact of climate change, Mr Ebell responded: "His [Mr Trump's] mandate is pretty clear, and he knows who he got it from. If Rex Tillerson disagrees with the President, who is going to win that debate?

"Well I don't know but the President was elected and Rex Tillerson was appointed by the President, so I would guess that the President would be the odds-on favourite to win any disagreement over climate policy."

Mr Ebell's assertion appears to contradict Mr Trump's approach to other policy areas - specifically torture - where the President has said the final say will be given to his cabinet picks, notably the secretary of defence James Mattis.

Asked last year about the link between humans and climate change, Mr Trump said there was “some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much”.

The New York property tycoon has also said he would look “very closely” at whether to remain a signatory of the Paris agreement.

Friends of the Earth’s director of campaigns, Simon Rayner, said pulling the US out of the Paris climate treaty "would be an act of utter contempt from Donald Trump towards the international community.

“Climate change is one of the biggest challenges the whole planet faces – and one the U.S must play its fair share in tackling.

“The warning lights are flashing: Theresa May must urgently stand up to Donald Trump and an environment and political agenda that is already causing huge harm.”

Mr Ebell admitted he had not met Mr Trump and said he was appointed last August by a former member of his inner circle, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

The self-described "enemy of climate change alarmism", who disputes the negative impact of carbon dioxide on the environment, added: "There hasn't been much warming for the last 20 years, or statistically no warming for the last 20 years, but it is going to happen because we keep pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Prince Charles happy to meet Trump to discuss interfaith issues

Prince Charles happy to meet Trump to discuss interfaith issues

Royal sources say Charles’s connections with Islamic world might help his views to carry weight with the US president

Robert Booth

Monday 30 January 2017 15.02 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/30/prince-charles-happy-meet-donald-trump-interfaith-islamic-connections

Prince Charles would welcome a meeting with Donald Trump to discuss interfaith relations, sources close to him have said, amid a growing outcry at the US ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority nations.

A royal source said Charles remained willing to meet Trump if the state visit went ahead, saying: “It is not his style to turn his back.”

Charles’s record as an advocate for interfaith relations and his high-level connections in the Islamic world, including close relations with Saudi and Gulf state royals, were cited by royal sources as reasons why his views might carry weight with Trump.

More than 1.25 million people have signed a petition asking Downing Street to withdraw the US president’s invitation to a state visit to Britain.

The prince is said to have become increasingly concerned about religious intolerance, and last week told a private reception at Lambeth Palace that he was dismayed that a report on religious persecution around the world had gone under-reported.

His supporters say he is in a position to speak frankly to world leaders without worrying about short-term politics.

“The prince has gone into the Middle East over recent years at the government’s request and has been the honest and neutral broker,” one source said. “He has listened, reported back and convened. If that is required now with President Trump, the only people who can decide is the government.”

They added: “For this country, it would be helpful for him [Trump] to sit down with the Prince of Wales.”

Despite the international outcry at Trump’s travel ban, the prince is likely to approach any meeting with Trump as an opportunity rather than a problem, allies said.

Charles has repeatedly highlighted the plight of persecuted Christians in Syria, an issue that Trump has also raised, and this may provide a bridge between the two men.

Charles told Radio 4’s Thought for the Day last month: “We are now seeing the rise of many populist groups across the world that are increasingly aggressive towards those who adhere to a minority faith.”

Clarence House believes the topics of interfaith dialogue and religious persecution are as likely to come up at any meeting between Trump and Charles as climate change, another faultline between US and US policy.

Charles reportedly hopes to hear what Trump has to say on climate change and build a relationship with the US president on that issue.

Clarence House was keen to stress that it remained “very relaxed” about whether the planned state visit includes a meeting with Trump. There were reports that Trump’s team were concerned Charles would lecture Trump, although Clarence House made clear he had no such intention.

Buckingham Palace will be tasked with helping to organise the visit with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. As tens of thousands of people prepared to attend demonstrations around the UK on Monday evening calling for the invitation to be rescinded, there appeared to be little progress on settling on dates for the visit or the programme, including whether it would take place at Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle.

Uma cidade deve ser feita para os visitantes ou para os habitantes?

(…) “ passamos sempre do 8 para o 80, do zero para o infinito. O mesmo espírito iluminado está a transformar toda a frente do rio, da 24 de Julho a Santa Apolónia, num espaço maravilhoso, porém coutada privada dos turistas que desembarcam dos navios de cruzeiro ou dos que ocupam os hostels da Baixa e que alugam uma bicicleta por umas horas ou entram nos tuk-tuks, sem nada mais para fazer e sem necessidade de verdadeiramente habitarem a cidade.

No lugar deles, eu estaria feliz: o melhor espaço da capital reservado para si, limpo do estorvo dos carros dos habitantes locais e dos próprios habitantes.

Não admira que Lisboa esteja em todos os tops do mundo como a melhor cidade para visitar. Mas a questão que coloco é esta: por mais importante que seja economicamente o turismo, por mais orgulho que nos dê ver Lisboa recuperada, uma cidade deve ser feita para os visitantes ou para os habitantes?

Quantos lisboetas vão ver o pôr-do-sol ao Cais das Colunas, quantos não vão há anos ao Terreiro do Paço, sempre em obras para os turistas, quantos podem atravessar a cidade de nascente para poente ao longo do rio?"

Miguel Sousa Tavares / Expresso desta semana

A DANGEROUSLY ISOLATED PRESIDENT

A DANGEROUSLY ISOLATED PRESIDENT

By Benjamin Wallace-Wells January 29, 2017

http://www.newyorker.com/news/benjamin-wallace-wells/a-dangerously-isolated-president

The Presidential order that Donald Trump signed on Friday barring all refugees and citizens from seven Muslim countries from travel to the United States was reviewed by virtually no one. The State Department did not help craft it, nor the Defense Department, nor Justice. Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, John Kelly, “saw the final details shortly before the order was finalized,” CNN reported. Early Saturday morning, there were reports that two Iraqi refugees had been detained upon their arrival at John F. Kennedy Airport. When a lawyer for the men asked an official to whom he needed to speak to fix the situation, the official said, “Ask Mr. Trump.” This sounded like a sign of straight goonery and incipient authoritarianism; maybe it was. But it also may have been the only reasonable answer. Few people understood what was going on.

The order claims to protect Americans from “foreign terrorist entry,” but that was no reason for it. A wealth of data shows that immigrants from those countries have not been responsible for fatal terrorist attacks in the United States. At first, the acting spokesperson of the Department of Homeland Security said that the order would not apply to permanent residents of the United States. This seemed to be a sensible assumption; as fevered as the talk over immigration has been on the right, few have threatened a mass revocation of the rights of green-card holders. But a senior White House official later said that green-card holders would have to undergo screenings. Morally outrageous scenes followed. Homeland Security officials said that at least a hundred people had been prevented from entering the country, and many more had been stopped from boarding planes to the U.S. Those detained at Dulles International Airport, before federal judges issued stays of the order, included an Iranian couple in their eighties, both with green cards. One was legally blind, and the other had recently had a stroke; their granddaughter said that officials at the airport “weren’t treating them very well.” At O’Hare, a couple with an eighteen-month-old was reportedly detained, after a trip abroad to introduce the baby to relatives.

On Saturday, the President announced three more executive actions, one of which changed the composition of his National Security Council. Trump reserved one seat on the Council for his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, the former chairman of the right-wing Web site Breitbart News, who has no experience in foreign relations. Trump also limited the roles of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of National Intelligence, with a memo that said they will only attend meetings when “issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed.” The erasure of the line between national security and Bannon’s politics, which have included an embrace of white nationalism, was deeply troubling. But the exclusion of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of National Intelligence was more surprising. The President can pick anyone he wants for those positions. Trump has nominated the former Indiana senator Dan Coats to be the director of National Intelligence; the term of the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, will expire this year. The President seems to be deliberately tightening the circle around him.

In the first week of the Trump Presidency, influence has run through a very select group of advisers—maybe as many as half a dozen, maybe as few as two. The President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Bannon have consolidated their influence. Kushner, who has spent his brief career running his father’s real-estate empire, reportedly has been told to lead negotiations with Mexico. Kushner was also involved in a discussion with British officials, and denounced the United Kingdom’s support of a United Nations resolution opposing Israeli settlements. According to the Washington Post, some former campaign aides “have been alarmed by Kushner’s efforts to elbow aside anyone he perceives as a possible threat to his role as Trump’s chief consigliere.” But Bannon’s portfolio may be even broader. His hand was apparent in the President’s dark Inauguration speech, in his economic nationalism, and in his early, aggressive stances against Mexico and refugees.

The President’s isolation runs deeper than that. As the confusion around the immigration ban made clear, the vast government he oversees has little input on his actions. In an interview this week, Trump said that he reads the Times, the New York Post, and the Washington Post each day, but he seems to scan them as an actor does, for reviews of his own performance. His campaign made clear that he was not interested in the findings of scientists, social scientists, or the American government. Trump’s transition has alienated him from the American public. Gallup found on Friday that fifty per cent of Americans disapproved of Trump’s performance, the highest disapproval rating on record for any American President this early in his term.

close dialog

In normal times, an Administration this isolated and divorced from public opinion would seem to be fatally weak. The argument made by the President’s first week is that these conditions, combined with the general assent of a Republican-controlled Congress, might in fact create the opposite situation, freeing him to do whatever he wants.

At times this past week, the theatre of the Administration has seemed to be as large as the Oval Office; at others, it has seemed smaller still, about the size of the President’s own head. “If Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible ‘carnage’ going on . . . I will send in the Feds!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday evening. In fact, a large team from the Department of Justice had recently been in Chicago, where it delivered an indictment of the excesses of the Chicago Police Department, connecting them to the collapse of trust between residents and officers, which in turn enabled a rise in crime.

But that report hadn’t prompted the President’s tweet. What had? It turned out that Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show had just aired a segment on crime in Chicago. The President had seen something that moved him on a news program, and then he had reacted. The tweet was one of the least significant Presidential gestures of the past week. But it served as prelude for some of the darker ones. At times, the only figure in the room may be Trump himself, with the blue glow of his television screen.

Merkel 'explains' refugee convention to Trump in phone call

Merkel 'explains' refugee convention to Trump in phone call

German chancellor speaks to president amid international anger over US ban on people from seven Muslim countries

Sam Jones and Philip Oltermann

Sunday 29 January 2017 16.45 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/29/merkel-explains-geneva-refugee-convention-to-trump-in-phone-call

Donald Trump’s executive order to halt travel from seven Muslim-majority countries – Iraq, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia – has provoked a wave of concern and condemnation from international leaders and politicians.

A spokesman for Angela Merkel said the German chancellor regretted Trump’s decision to ban citizens of certain countries from entering the US, adding that she had “explained” the obligations of the refugee convention to the new president in a phone call on Saturday.

“The chancellor regrets the US government’s entry ban against refugees and the citizens of certain countries,” Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement.

“She is convinced that the necessary, decisive battle against terrorism does not justify a general suspicion against people of a certain origin or a certain religion.

“The … refugee convention requires the international community to take in war refugees on humanitarian grounds. All signatory states are obligated to do. The German government explained this policy in their call yesterday.”

Seibert said the German government would examine what consequences the ban would have for German citizens with dual citizenship, and would “represent their interests, if necessary, before our American partners”.

A summary of the phone call between Merkel and Trump, jointly issued to the press on Saturday, had made no mention of the travel ban, emphasising merely the “fundamental significance” of Nato and the intention to “further deepen the already excellent bilateral relations in the coming years”.

The French president, François Hollande, said on Saturday that “when [Trump] rejects the arrival of refugees, while Europe has done its duty, we should respond to him”.

Hollande said that in an unstable and uncertain world, “withdrawal into oneself is a dead-end response”, adding that defending democratic principles required compliance with “the principles on which it is founded, in particular the acceptance of refugees”.

Crowds gather at US airports over the weekend to protest Trump’s immigration ban

In a tweet, Italy’s prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, said his country was committed to the values that bind Europe: “Open society; plural identity; no discrimination.”

However, the leader of Italy’s anti-immigrant Northern League party expressed admiration for Trump’s entry ban.

“What Trump’s doing on the other side of the ocean, I’d like it done here, too,” said Matteo Salvini. Referring to the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and economic migrants brought to Italy in the last few years after being rescued in the Mediterranean, Salvini said there was “an invasion under way which needs to be blocked”.

Ireland’s foreign affairs minister, Charlie Flanagan, said that while US immigration policy was a matter for the US government, “it is clear that the most recent decisions could have far-reaching implications – both on humanitarian grounds and on relations between the US and the global Muslim community”.

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, tweeted:

Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Sarif, said Trump’s decision would be recorded in history as “a great gift to extremists and their supporters … Collective discrimination aids terrorist recruitment by deepening faultlines exploited by extremist demagogues to swell their ranks.”

Margot Wallström,  

Trump’s Turkey honeymoon sours in days

Trump’s Turkey honeymoon sours in days

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued an early invitation to the new president. His prime minister over the weekend blasted the ‘Muslim ban.’

By ZIA WEISE 1/30/17, 4:39 AM CET

http://www.politico.eu/article/trump-turkey-honeymoon-sours-erdogan-muslim-ban/

ISTANBUL — Consensus is rare in Turkey’s fractured society. But when Donald Trump won the U.S. elections, Turks across the political spectrum agreed: The new American president and Turkey’s ruler Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would get along just fine.

How short that lasted. Erdoğan and his supporters have gone from confidence bordering on giddiness about the prospects for Turkish-American relations to disillusionment in less than a week of Trump in the White House.

Only weeks ago, government supporters pointed out with satisfaction that Trump had defeated his country’s old elites at the ballot box, just as Erdoğan did 15 years earlier. Government critics saw the similarities as well between, in their view, two thin-skinned populists with a penchant for lawsuits who were likely to see eye-to-eye.

Erdoğan congratulated Trump on his electoral victory, insisting that the president ought to visit Turkey “as soon as possible.” Ministers expressed hope for closer relations; ties between Ankara and Washington had become strained under the Obama administration. Meanwhile, Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric was written off as campaign talk.

As Trump makes good on his pledges, the honeymoon is coming to an early end. “We are waiting to see what Mr. Trump will say about the Middle East,” Erdoğan told reporters last week. “At the moment, some language about the Middle East is reaching our ear, and it is frankly disturbing.”

While Erdoğan did not elaborate, he was not alone in expressing his dismay with the new administration. When Trump forged ahead with his “Muslim ban,” suspending visas for those born in seven Muslim-majority nations, Turkish ministers were quick to criticize the order.

“Regional issues cannot be solved by closing the doors on people,” said Binali Yıldırım, Turkey’s prime minister, at a press conference with his British counterpart Theresa May on Saturday. “You can build a wall. But it’s not a solution. That wall will come down like the Berlin Wall.”

Short honeymoon

Disagreement was probably inevitable. Turkey’s ruling party is rooted in Islamism and prides itself on giving a voice to religious conservatives. Erdoğan likes to cast himself as a representative and protector of Sunni Muslims across the Middle East; Ankara hosts exiled members of the Syrian opposition and various rebel groups, as well as Hamas and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

During the campaign period, the Turkish government was less supportive of Trump than strongly opposed to Hillary Clinton, who was perceived as a threat to Turkey’s interests.

Trump, on the other hand, hit out at Muslims and Islam throughout his campaign, proposing not only a “Muslim ban” but also a “Muslim registry.” Over the summer, Erdoğan called for the Republican nominee’s name to be removed from Istanbul’s Trump Towers. Apart from that, barely a word of criticism was heard in Ankara’s corridors of power.

During the campaign period, the Turkish government was less supportive of Trump than strongly opposed to Hillary Clinton, who was perceived as a threat to Turkey’s interests. The Democratic nominee’s firm support for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia put her at odds with Ankara. The YPG, widely regarded as the most efficient force in the fight against the Islamic State, has ties to the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

On top of that, Clinton’s campaign received donations from supposed supporters of Fethullah Gülen, the Pennsylvania-based cleric accused of masterminding an attempt to overthrow Erdoğan’s government last summer. Followers of Gülen have been the target of a sweeping purge in Turkey, with tens of thousands detained since the failed coup.

Gülen and U.S. support for Syrian Kurds had already soured relations under Obama’s administration. Turkish ministers’ calls for the extradition of Gülen fell on deaf ears in Washington, fueling frustration in Ankara. Turkey also repeatedly condemned what it saw as “support for terror,” fretting that the international community’s endorsement of the YPG would bolster the PKK’s demands for autonomy in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast.

“The optimism toward Trump was a reaction to the approach of the Obama administration during the last month of his term,” said Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı, who heads the Ankara office of the German Marshall Fund, a Washington-based think tank. “They thought that the Clinton administration would be a direct continuation of the Obama administration. They hoped that relations would improve under Trump.”

Early signs were promising. Turkish ministers applauded the election results; the pro-government press heaped praise on Trump. There was a palpable sense of schadenfreude that the Republican nominee had persevered despite “opposition” from the press. The minister for justice, Bekir Bozdağ, declared: “The American people said no to their will being manipulated.”

Mike Pompeo, the new CIA director, declared Turkey a “totalitarian Islamist dictatorship” in a now-deleted tweet.

Shortly after the election, Erdoğan called anti-Trump protests “a disrespect to democracy.” Trump, in turn, reportedly told Erdoğan that his daughter Ivanka admired him. The Turkish president also lauded Trump’s approach to the press: After Trump lashed out at a CNN reporter during a press conference, labeling the broadcaster “fake news,” Erdoğan commended him for putting the journalist “in his place.” (Turkey currently jails more journalists than any other nation.)

Trump even appeared to lend his support to a plan long supported by Ankara to set up “safe zones” within Syria for refugees fleeing the violence.

“Ankara’s initial optimism is now giving way to cynicism,” said Ünlühisarcıklı. “Turkey is puzzled — OK, a security zone, but what kind of security zone? Ankara is concerned it could be established in Kurdish areas, supporting the Kurds’ argument for autonomy.”

Ünlühisarcıklı warned that Turkey might be setting itself up for disappointment. Ankara’s hopes that Trump might speed up Gülen’s extraditions will likely amount to nothing, given that the cleric’s case is a matter for the U.S. judiciary.

Whether Trump will continue Obama’s support for the YPG is uncertain; Yıldırım and other ministers have expressed hope that the new administration would “bring an end to this shame” of supplying the YPG with weapons. Yet during his confirmation hearings, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, named the Kurdish militia as the West’s greatest ally in the fight against the Islamic State. (In 2011, when he was head of Exxon Mobil, the company signed a contract to drill for oil in Iraqi Kurdistan not with the central Iraqi government in Baghdad, but with the Kurds.)

Other officials brought in by Trump may also spell trouble for Washington’s relationship with Turkey. Mike Pompeo, the new CIA director, declared Turkey a “totalitarian Islamist dictatorship” in a now-deleted tweet. Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser, called Turkey a “source of stability” — but a video filmed during the night of July’s coup attempt shows him cheering on the plotters trying to overthrow Erdoğan.

As initial excitement over Trump’s election recedes, Ankara is beginning to grasp what the new administration might have in store for the Middle East. Conservative columnists were enraged at the suggestion to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, an order that could provoke unrest in the region. Reports that Trump is considering designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group are unlikely to have gone down well in Ankara, either.

Nor has Trump’s rhetoric of linking Islam to terrorism gone unnoticed. In his inauguration speech, Trump pledged to “eradicate” what he sees as “radical Islamic terrorism.” Ankara took note: “The predominant feature of the new administration is that it has developed a generalist and prejudiced approach to the Islamic world,” wrote a columnist for the pro-government Yeni Şafak newspaper.

Obama refused to speak of “Islamic terrorism” to avoid associating the religion with violence — something that Erdoğan, who is known to despise this phrase, may have appreciated.

“Obama was very sensitive toward Muslims’ feelings. That’s not what Trump is doing. Trump is equating Islam with terrorism,” said Kemal Kirişci, a Turkey expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “In retrospect,” he added, “Turkey may come to miss Obama.”

Authors:

Zia Weise  

Prince Charles may raise climate change during Trump's visit to Britain

Prince Charles may raise climate change during Trump's visit to Britain

Some in Whitehall are urging the prince to challenge US president’s pledge to abandon 2015 UN climate change deal

Robert Booth

Sunday 29 January 2017 13.18 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/29/prince-charles-climate-change-trump-visit-britain?CMP=fb_gu

Donald Trump’s state visit to Britain this year was never likely to fit the mould of previous trips undertaken by his predecessors, from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama. The US president’s rumoured wish to play nine holes on the Queen’s private golf course at Balmoral and the question of how he might explain his 2012 tweet defending the sale of topless pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge made sure of that.

But the tour is now looking even more likely to generate controversy as Prince Charles emerged as a possible challenger to the president’s views on climate change and faith issues.

The Guardian understands from royal sources that the prince will not lecture Trump in relation to their starkly divergent views of what needs to be done to tackle global warming but has not ruled out addressing the topic. This poses a challenge not just for the president, who has threatened to “cancel” the United Nations climate change deal signed in Paris in 2015 and who has described climate change as “created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive”. It is also a conundrum for the British government scrambling to work out how to address Trump’s radical programme and how to make use of a sometimes controversial advocate for climate action.

Charles is being urged by some in Whitehall to use his decades-long experience in environmentalism to challenge Trump’s pledge to abandon the deal, as part of “harmonised” efforts with the UK government to keep the carbon-cutting treaty on track.

But other UK officials are reported to be concerned that the likely meeting between the men has become a “risk factor” for the visit. Another potentially controversial issue that could arise is religion Prince Charles’s history of trying to promote better interfaith relations contrast with Trump’s actions to block travellers from Muslim-majority countries from entering the US.

An anonymous source, described as being close to Trump, said this weekend that the president would not put up with being lectured by the prince, according to the Sunday Times. The source warned against the two men meeting at all.

That appears unlikely. Under the normal choreography of a state visit, Charles is likely to have several opportunities to spend time with Trump. Although details of the visit have yet to be finalised, the Prince of Wales would typically welcome Trump where he is staying, possibly the US ambassador’s residence in Regent’s Park, central London. They would then travel together to Horse Guards Parade from where there is normally a formal procession down the Mall to Buckingham Palace for the leader to be greeted by the Queen. That would be followed by a lunch, attended again by Charles.

A state dinner provides another opportunity for interaction and Charles also invites most leaders to afternoon tea at Clarence House. Whether this will happen with Trump is yet to be decided, and is said to depend on how much time is available. Barack Obama did not take tea on his last state visit, but China’s president, Xi Jinping, did.

In parts of Whitehall Charles is now considered to be “an extremely good asset” in helping to maintain the integrity of the UN climate change treaty. He has been “gently primed” to assist diplomatic efforts on the issue, a senior Whitehall source said and there is “a sympathetic hearing” between Clarence House and the government on climate change, with Charles’s views considered “absolutely in line with government policy”.

“It has taken a lot of work by some of us to get him into that place, but what he is doing now is extremely helpful to us,” the source said.

Last week, while Trump issued executive orders to revive oil pipeline projects and told carmakers that environmental regulation was “out of control”, Charles stepped up his own warnings on the environment. In a foreword to a Ladybird book on climate change published on Thursday and co-written by the prince, he described climate change as “the wolf at the door” and said action “must be urgently scaled up and scaled up now”.

One royal aide said Charles “would find a meeting [with Trump] on this subject [climate change] extremely useful” but also made clear that while the agenda might or might not include climate change, the mode of delivery would not be confrontational or hectoring.

“If anything, he is a helpful and honest broker on so many issues,” said one source. The source explained that Charles is usually in listening mode for the first 30 minutes of meetings with heads of state and only towards the end would consider offering thoughts about how problems that had been raised might be addressed.

Another source close to the prince said it would be difficult for him to be very direct with Trump. “He has to retain political neutrality, which is why he is always walking something of a tightrope on this subject,” the source said.

However, the same source added: “It is fair to say he considers the world to be in great peril because of climate change, system degradation and resource depletion and he feels it is necessary for him to use his position to say something about that.”

Some in Whitehall hope that far from causing Trump to “erupt”, as one anonymous US source suggested at the weekend, the US president may in fact be more engaged by Charles expressing views about the need for urgent action on climate change than a politician, in part because of Trump’s admiration of wealth and British royalty.

Trump reportedly told Theresa May in November that his Scottish mother, Mary MacLeod, was “a big fan of the Queen”.

“Trump is the sort of person who loves the panoply surrounding wealth and royalty,” said a senior government source. “He loves reflecting the glory of the royal family. He is pressing for a state visit so he can go and have a meal in Buckingham Palace and he wants to play golf on the Queen’s golf course.”

Environmental campaigners have also backed Charles’s ability to influence the new US president, in part by rallying other countries including Brazil, China and India to stand by the deal, thereby putting indirect pressure on Trump.

“He has an international outreach and he is respected in the US,” said Nick Molho, executive director of the Aldersgate Group, an alliance of businesses, politicians and campaign groups pushing for a sustainable economy. “He has the benefit of being a step removed from everyday politics and I think that is important. It allows him to have more authority and to be a more engaging figure.”

Charles told the 2015 UN climate change conference in Paris: “The moment has arrived to take those long-awaited steps towards rescuing our planet and our fellow man from impending catastrophe.” He has also previously acknowledged the importance of US policy on climate change. In a 2015 speech he told an audience in Washington DC: “America’s impact is profound and it is my, and many others’, fervent hope that you will continue to inspire others both at home and on the global stage.”

In recent years, Charles has focused his campaigning and convening efforts on the fight against climate change. He runs his own international sustainability unit from Clarence House, which describes itself as a trusted forum for “key actors from governments, the private sector and civil society”.