The empty chair of US President Donald Trump is seen during a working session focused on climate change during the G7 Summit in Biarritz, France (Picture: Reuters)

Donald Trump skipped an important discussion on climate change with other world leaders, leaving just an empty chair in his place.

Other members of the G7 were debating how to help the fire-ravaged Amazon and reduce carbon emissions but there was no sign of the US President.

Trump had been scheduled to attend Monday’s session on climate, biodiversity and oceans at the summit in Biarritz, France.

Instead, the climate-change sceptic president sent his aides.


US President Donald Trump started the day behind schedule (Picture: Reuters)

Trump’s views on the environment have worried campaigners and he once claimed climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese.

He pulled the US out of the 2015 Paris climate accord, which has severely damaged global efforts to reduce emissions.



French President Emmanuel Macron shrugged off Trump’s absence, saying it was not his goal to make the US rejoin the climate accord.

He said: ‘You can’t rewrite the past.’

Trump was said to have started the morning behind schedule.

While the others were in the climate discussions, he was holding one-to-one meetings with other world leaders.

During that time he met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who did manage to get to the environment talks.

The empty chair of US President Donald Trump (Picture: Reuters)

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres did attend Monday’s climate talks and said he hoped that all American citizens would think about their carbon footprint, even if their President was unengaged.

He said: ‘I am very optimistic about American society and its capacity to deliver in relation to climate action.

‘What matters here is to have a strong engagement of the American society and of the American business community and the American local authorities.’

The G7 countries have pledged $20 million (£18 million) to help the fires in the Amazon rainforest, which has provoked global outrage.

Mr Macron made the rainforest issue one of the summit’s priorities, calling the fires an ‘international crisis.’

Environmentalists blame Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for the sharp increase in Amazon deforestation and said his rhetoric has emboldened farmers, miners and loggers to deliberately set fire to the rainforest.