Climate politics could be about to go into reverse

A few days after

Donald Trump won the US election,

I was at the UN climate COP in Azerbaijan, where I ran into the head of a climate change think-tank who said something unexpected.

He told me his US team had adopted the same communications guidelines the group used in China, where independent research groups tread carefully to avoid rattling Beijing’s authoritarian regime. His US staff had to ensure all public comments were politically neutral, and avoid any moves that could be construed as overt attacks on the administration.