Donald Trump becoming America’s president is bad news in the fight to tackle global warming.

That’s the view of Dr Julia Meaton, in the Centre for Sustainable and Resilient Communities at the University of Huddersfield , who says America is second to China for CO2 emissions.

She said: “America has an important role in the global effort to keep global temperature rises below 2 degrees. America is the second highest emitter of CO2 emissions, second to China.

“However, the US has never been a team player in this ‘game’ and has been largely defensive and laggard in responding to previous global agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol. With the inauguration of a new President previous hesitancy and dragging of the feet is likely to be eclipsed given Trump’s own climate scepticism and his tweeted belief that it was ‘created by the Chinese’. His appointment of Rex Tillerson, as secretary of state, his proposed attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and the new guy at the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, are all climate change deniers, wedded to the fossil fuel industry.

“Trump’s push to make America great again by revitalising the coal industry and his declared wish to scupper the Paris Agreement are unlikely to change in the face of evidence. Any reality that gets in the way of Trump’s reactionary and flawed agenda will surely be branded as ‘fake news’.”