175 researchers urge UK Prime Minister to stand up to President Trump on climate change

The UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has been urged to stand up to President Donald Trump on climate change in a letter sent by 175 researchers at British universities and research institutions.

The letter, sent ahead of the start of President Trump’s State Visit to the UK, calls for the Prime Minister to “challenge robustly the President of the United States, Donald Trump, about his reckless approach to climate change”.

It warns: “President Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement for a second time, and has abandoned domestic climate change policies. As the United States is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China, Mr Trump’s actions are harming lives and livelihoods in the United States, United Kingdom and every other country in the world”.

It points out that “Mr Trump and members of his administration have also been attempting to interfere in British climate and energy policy over the past few months. During his recent visit to Scotland in July, President Trump called for the United Kingdom to stop deploying wind turbines, and made several false claims about wind farms”.

The letter states: “It is critically important that you and your Government stand up to President Trump and challenge him about his dangerous and irresponsible approach to climate change, which is damaging the best interests of current and future generations in this country.”

The letter is signed by 175 staff at British universities and research institutions, including 17 members of the UK’s national academies, who have published at least one journal paper on climate-related issues. The letter was organised by Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The letter draws attention to actions by the Trump administration to “promote ignorance and denial”. It states that “Mr Trump’s administration has been purging information about climate change from Government websites, stopping climate research, and denying the scientific evidence provided by the world’s best scientists”.

It notes: There is not a single scientific academy in the world that rejects the evidence that climate change is happening and is driven by human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels. The impacts are growing in the United Kingdom and around the world.”

The letter highlights the growing impacts of climate change in the UK: “The United Kingdom has just experienced its warmest summer on record, during which there were hundreds of wildfires and heat-related deaths across the nation. The Met Office has estimated that the record warmth was made about 70 times more likely by climate change.”