Climate change will not be on the agenda of next year's G7 summit, to be held at US President Donald Trump's Florida golf club, the White House said on Thursday.
The announcement marks the latest development in Trump's running battle against nearly all forms of environmental regulation that has seen his administration pull out of the Paris climate accord, axe rules limiting leaks of the greenhouse gas methane and weaken key wildlife protections.
"Climate change will not be on the agenda," acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters.
The United States and China account for nearly half the planet's carbon emissions, making them the key countries needed to get behind urgent efforts to battle climate change.
But Trump's Republican Party is one of the few political forces in the world whose leadership denies manmade climate change. It has faced broad condemnation for the president's decision to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate accord.
Twenty-four American states launched a lawsuit against the Trump administration in September over its bid to restrict their authority to limit auto emissions.
That move came days after the White House issued a new rule reversing a requirement for all new light bulbs to be energy-efficient by 2020, triggering an outcry among activists.
