Woodrow Wilson high school in Beckley, rural West Virginia, is far removed from the halls of congress and the gathering of global leaders in Glasgow next week.
Crowded around tables in the cafeteria, local people discuss how they might rehabilitate communities devastated by the decline of the coal industry.
This is a “listening session” where those affected by the closure of the mines can be heard by politicians.
Image: Heather Tully thinks green energy will not take over the world
West Virginia is built on black gold, many here have worked in the coal industry for decades, as have generations before them.
But most aren’t aware of COP26 happening next week, let alone how its outcomes might impact them.
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These are the people President Joe Biden has to win over if he is to make combating climate change a central part of his legacy and specifically if he is to wean the world’s largest economy off coal and gas and onto renewable energy.
The scale of the challenge is very evident. “I do not believe we will ever see green energy take over the world,” says Heather Tully, a Republican and member of the West Virginia House of Delegates.
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She takes a dim view of Mr Biden’s climate agenda and his pledge to spend $500bn (£362bn) on incentives to switch to renewable power and electric vehicles.
“West Virginia is probably not the most enamoured with President Biden,” she says.
“We’re a long way from Washington and the rhetoric on climate, they’re trying to shove it down people’s throat but it’s not going to fly here.”
Her opinion is echoed around the room. Joe Carter worked in the mines and now represents the mineworkers union.
Image: Mining engineer Joe Carter believes climate change is a ‘cyclic natural event caused by the rotation of the sun’
I ask if he believes in climate change? “I’m a 41-year coal miner and that’s directly in conflict with my job and the future jobs of the coal industry,” he says.
“I realise that there’s problems, there seem to be a lot of violent storms and things of that nature taking place, I recognise it and I want a safe environment. But I also want to protect my livelihood.”
Most people here recognise the climate is changing – it’s hard to dispute in a state afflicted by record flooding in recent years – but many contest the idea of climate change.
Image: Angie Rosser think Mr Biden’s announcement is a historic moment for the US
“I think that it’s a cyclic natural event caused by the rotation of the sun,” an engineer for safety shelters in mines, tells me, “it’s a combination of things.”
Mr Biden arrived in Rome on Friday morning, alongside wife Jill. He wanted to arrive in Glasgow with a show-stopping half a trillion-dollar pot to tackle climate change but so far he has been unable to unite even his own party behind his wider spending plan.
His departure was delayed as he made a desperate last-ditch attempt to bring hold-out Democrats on board, ultimately unsuccessfully.
But environmentalists in West Virginia were encouraged by the scale and scope of his proposals.
Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Association, believes it is a historic moment for the country. “It is a marker to say the United States is ready to make a big commitment on climate,” she says.
“I’m hopeful that West Virginia and the rest of the world will take note of that and follow that. I hope they will make sure the people of West Virginia are taken care of.”
Mr Biden has privately said the next week could define his entire term in the White House. He knows America’s climate credibility is on the line and his credibility as a diplomatic force is, too.
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Biden hails ‘significant’ US climate investment
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Donald Trump wants to emulate Vladimir Putin and “govern his own country in a similar fashion”, his former national security adviser has said.
Fiona Hill told Sky News’ The World with Yalda Hakim that the US and Russian presidents both share the same view of the world as being “divided up among three major powers; Russia, the US and China, with very clear spheres of influence”.
She said the two leaders “have shockingly similar world views”.
Image: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Pic: Reuters
“This is the first time we’ve had a US president who wants to emulate the Russian leader in some way, who wants to create a hyper-personalised presidency, who wants to basically govern his own country in a very similar fashion, very top down without any checks and balances,” she said.
Ms Hill added Mr Trump wants to “regularise, normalise and reset” the relationship between the US and Russia.
“That’s very clear, it’s been clear since the first presidency of Trump,” she said.
“He’s always wanted to sit down with Vladimir Putin and sort out all of the difficulties in the bilateral relationship, everything from nuclear issues and nuclear arms reduction – there’s all kinds of economic and business deals that Trump himself and his immediate circle are very interested in.
“That was not the direction of travel of other US presidents. So in actual fact there’s probably more chance under Trump of a close relationship between the US and Putin.”
Ms Hill said Mr Trump has an interest in forging a “personal relationship” beyond what he already has with Mr Putin.
“He wants to extricate the United States from its support for Ukraine, he’s said that very clearly,” she said.
“He also wants to pull back from the underpinning of European security and get the Europeans to pick up not just support for Ukraine, but also much more involvement and much more in-depth payment for all of their own security, that’s also very clear.
“So there is a strategic perspective there and I think part of the US strategy and the Trump administration strategy is to push the Europeans to go off essentially on their owns in terms of framing what they want in European security and making it very clear to the Ukrainians that they can’t expect much more future support from the United States.”
Hours after US secretary of state Marco Rubio withdrew from high-level talks in London aimed at ending the conflict, the American president heaped pressure on Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “get it done”.
It’s not that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy won’t back down, it’s that he can’t.
The US plan to recognise Russia‘s claim to Ukrainian territory it has seized effectively legitimises Moscow’s decision to invade.
To concede that would be a breach of Ukraine’s constitution.
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Ukraine has not hinted at recognising Crimea as Russian ‘for even a day’
The country’s economy minister Yuliia Svyrydenko says they’re “ready to negotiate, not ready to surrender”.
US vice president JD Vance has now stepped into Marco Rubio’s shoes, warning that America will “walk away” if there isn’t a “yes” from both sides.
But President Trump is only talking about one side: Ukraine.
The absence of any reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his lengthy post online will not have gone unnoticed.
He claimed no one was asking Zelenskyy to recognise Crimea as Russian, but contradicted that by asking why Ukraine hadn’t fought for Crimea 11 years ago.
President Trump blamed the loss of Crimea on one of his predecessors, his reference to “President Barack Hussein Obama” revealing the depth of his frustration.
He claims he is “very close” to a deal, but the signals from Washington, London, Moscow and Kyiv suggest otherwise.
Right now, it feels like he’s much closer to throwing in the towel and throwing Zelenskyy under the bus. Again.
Global stock markets and the dollar have rallied on hopes of two significant climbdowns by the Trump administration on issues blamed for a slump in values.
Remarks by the US Treasury secretary on punitive tariffs against China lifted the mood on Wall Street initially before the president himself moved to calm market trade war worries and also end speculation he could fire the head of the country’s central bank.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and tech-focused Nasdaq Composite both ended Tuesday trading 2.7% up, erasing losses of the previous day.
Asian markets later followed that lead, with the Hang Seng in Hong Kong gaining 2.4%.
European indices also saw a strong opening, with the FTSE 100 up by more than 1.2%. It was led higher by Asia-focused banks HSBC and Standard Chartered.
US futures suggested Wall Street would pick up where it left off, with further strong gains expected.
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The US dollar – badly hit by trade war implications in recent weeks – was at least a cent higher than a day earlier against many rival currencies including the pound.
The rally gathered steam on Tuesday evening when US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent told a private JPMorgan event that he expected a “de-escalation” in the spiralling spat with China.
It’s a fight that has seen US tariffs hit 145% and China responding with duties of 125%.
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Trump: Tariffs are making US ‘rich’
According to a transcript obtained by the Associated Press news agency, he told the audience: “Neither side thinks the status quo is sustainable”, but he added that peace talks were yet to start in earnest and could take time to bear fruit.
His boss later struck a similar tone in remarks to reporters when he said the final tariff rate with China would come down “substantially” from the current 145%.
“It won’t be that high, not going to be that high,” Mr Trump said, adding: “We’re doing fine with China… we’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together.”
He gave no hint that he plans to ease wider tariffs on trading partners, including the UK which is currently subject to 25% tariffs on car, steel and aluminium imports and a wider 10% “baseline” tariff.
But the president did row back on an apparent threat, made last week, to sack the chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell in revenge for the US central bank holding off on interest rate cuts that could provide some stimulus to the tariff-hit economy.
Mr Powell has said the Trump administration’s protectionist policies have created uncertainty over growth and the threat of higher inflation.
The president has dismissed those arguments but told reporters: “I have no intention of firing him”.
Image: Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell was nominated for the role by Donald Trump in 2017. File pic: AP
His comments were widely seen as an attempt to calm financial market concerns that the independence of the country’s central bank was under threat.
Analysts cautioned there was a long way to go to recover values seen before the start of the trade war, with the Nasdaq remaining almost 16% down in the year to date alone.
US government borrowing costs also remain elevated.
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1:10
What IMF said about the UK economy
Not helping sentiment were big downgrades to global growth forecasts by the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday.
Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone, said of the investor mood: “Participants understandably remain jittery, not only as the haven value of both Treasuries and the USD (US dollar) continue to be called into question, but also as a huge degree of trade uncertainty continues to linger.
“As a reminder, the whole concept of ’90 deals in 90 days’ is currently running at ‘0 deals in 14 days’ which, to be frank, doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.”