{"id":9948,"date":"2026-04-09T04:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T04:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/9948\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T04:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T04:13:12","slug":"britain-strains-to-sell-trump-allies-on-its-green-message-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/9948\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain strains to sell Trump allies on its green message \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three-and-a-half thousand meters above sea level, chunks of icy rock tumble down the side of Chile\u2019s Juncal Glacier and crash into the lake below.<\/p>\n

It startles the pack of ten officials, diplomats, scientists and park rangers gathered on the other side of the water, here to see up close the impacts of climate change on the Andean glacier. <\/p>\n

One of them is Katie White, a climate activist-turned-U.K. government minister, who was first elected as an MP in the northern English city of Leeds in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think just standing by that glacier and actually hearing the instability, and hearing the rocks falling \u2026 It\u2019s just a real reminder of what is happening and what we\u2019re doing to our world,\u201d White says.<\/p>\n

The climate minister was in Chile, and after that Argentina, to persuade her hosts of the urgency of the climate crisis at a time when some of the world\u2019s most powerful leaders are ditching environmental policies. But are governments, including the new Donald Trump-aligned administration here in Santiago, actually listening?<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d reflected White, \u201cI gotta make them listen.\u201d <\/p>\n

Greenie on tour<\/p>\n

The self-styled \u201cpractical greenie\u201d will have her work cut out. <\/p>\n

Chile\u2019s left-leaning government under Gabriel Boric agreed to work with the U.K. on hitting global climate targets<\/a> after Labour swept to victory. But it has been booted out. <\/p>\n

\"\"Abby Wallace\/POLITICO<\/p>\n

Its replacement is the new right-wing government of Jose Antonio Kast, which has tossed out 43 pending environmental regulations<\/a> \u2014 including, according to reports, rules governing harmful emissions from power plants \u2014 just days into office.<\/p>\n

That sparked alarm among local campaigners. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very unusual move from a new government,\u201d said Ezio Costa, a lawyer and executive director of FIMA, a Chilean environmental NGO. \u201cThis is something that we are worried about, and I think that it shows that the ideas of the new government are not aligned with the protection of the Chilean environment,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

Kast\u2019s focus, instead, was a day-one deal with Trump on access to Chile\u2019s much-coveted supply of critical minerals. In Argentina, President Javier Milei has toyed with following Trump\u2019s example<\/a> and abandoning the landmark Paris agreement to limit global warming. <\/p>\n

Kast is \u201cpart of the same platform that brought Trump, [Hungary\u2019s Victor] Orb\u00e1n, [Italy\u2019s Giorgia] Meloni and Milei to \u2026 power,\u201d Costa said.<\/p>\n

Sitting down with POLITICO for several conversations during her three-day Chile trip, White offered a glimpse into how Labour hopes to land its climate-friendly message in a world where that job has got tougher. <\/p>\n

\u201cPolitics is the art of the possible,\u201d she acknowledged ahead of meetings with her Chilean counterparts. \u201cNot the art of the perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baked in <\/p>\n

In Parque Andino Juncal, the sun beats down on the streams and wetlands of the Chilean Andes, home to lizards, small green birds (called \u201cbacon eaters\u201d by local rangers), and guanacos \u2014 the South American llama. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to find ways of working with [the Chilean government]. And my understanding is that Chileans are pretty practical in the same way that Brits are,\u201d said White, perched on a rock not far from the foot of the glacier.<\/p>\n

\"\"Abby Wallace\/POLITICO<\/p>\n

The 13,000-hectare park, which White trekked to the glacier edge, is a privately-owned conservation site. She wants to learn about the toll climate change is taking on Chile before heading into the \u201crooms of government\u201d for talks.<\/p>\n

Evidence of that impact is unmissable. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe see this big lake in front of the glacier, but this lake just formed less than eight years ago,\u201d said Francisco Fernandoy, a glaciologist who\u2019s been monitoring its retreat. \u201cIf you were here eight years ago, you can just walk over the glacier.\u201d<\/p>\n

People have to \u201cface reality,\u201d White said, arguing that a certain level of climate change is \u201cbaked into the system already.\u201d<\/p>\n

United Nations experts warn the world is already set to miss targets for limiting planetary warming agreed by 195 countries in Paris over a decade ago. That, the UN says<\/a>, means extreme events like wildfires and drought becoming ever more common.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s dangerous to go in with assumptions. I think there is a lot of things we will have in common,\u201d White said, brushing off fears about a clash of priorities.<\/p>\n

The U.K. will, White suggests, lean into wider arguments about a shared pursuit of economic growth, something Keir Starmer\u2019s government has focused on \u2014 so far without much sign of success \u2014 since the day it came to power.<\/p>\n

That is one common goal, White said. \u201cThey see that there is some regulation that is not helpful to that. So does our government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mission critical<\/p>\n

Economic upside is the main message White is here to sell: In copper-rich Chile, clean energy deals are in the interests of both countries. <\/p>\n

Chile\u2019s \u201cpro-new technologies\u201d approach is already attractive to investors \u2014 and that opportunity isn\u2019t lost on the green-skeptic new government, according to Costa, the NGO campaigner. Those investments mean \u201cit\u2019s unlikely that the government will go hard against these climate change policies,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The country is, for example, the world\u2019s top copper producer. Copper demand is going to \u201cradically increase,\u201d said Christopher Vandome, a critical minerals expert at the Chatham House think tank. <\/p>\n

Kast\u2019s rush to sign up to critical minerals collaboration with Trump is \u201cfundamental to the national security and commercial industries of both countries<\/a>,\u201d according to an account from Santiago.<\/p>\n

For White, standing at a viewing point on top of one of the country\u2019s largest copper mines, owned by British-headquartered Anglo-American, such deals are about green progress, too. Climate and critical minerals are \u201ctwo sides of the same coin,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her government needs access to minerals like those under her feet, which are fundamental to building clean tech like wind turbines and electric cars, and hitting ambitious targets for shifting off reliance on high-polluting oil and gas. <\/p>\n

To that end, demand for copper is expected to double in the U.K. alone by 2035, according to Whitehall\u2019s critical mineral strategy<\/a>, which also commits the country to diversifying away from reliance on Chinese supply chains.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, this is the practical layer of: How do we solve the climate crisis?\u201d White said.<\/p>\n

From the retreating glacier to the copper mine, she argued, the impact of the crisis and its potential solutions are \u201cjuxtaposed in a way that I\u2019m not sure you could see quite as clearly anywhere else in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Minister White holding some copper ore. | Abby Wallace\/POLITICO
\nClean energy \u2018powerhouse\u2019 <\/p>\n

As White chatted, self-driving trucks rolled around the mine pit below. The minister pocketed a small piece of shiny copper ore to take home.<\/p>\n

Future co-operation with Chile on critical minerals may mean \u201caccess to some of this,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it may mean unlocking access elsewhere.\u201d <\/p>\n

Countries across the world are vying for resources like those buried in the Chilean Andes. U.S. officials have already swooped in. London remains a small player in the global critical minerals market. <\/p>\n

But White has come armed with her own pitch. In a volatile world, the U.K\u2019s well-developed clean energy planning \u201cstands us in good stead to be a good partner\u201d and an \u201chonest broker<\/a>\u201d in global energy deals, she said. <\/p>\n

Her visit is a chance to suss out Santiago\u2019s priorities for its critical minerals and thrash out what the U.K. can offer, experts reckon. <\/p>\n

Chile is \u201cpotentially a complete powerhouse of the industrial transition,\u201d said Nick Mabey, chief executive of the climate think tank E3G. <\/p>\n

\u201cI imagine that the U.K. wants to find out where the new government is positioning itself in that context, and probably, in a more parochial sense, work out whether the U.K. is going to get access to some of Chile\u2019s resources,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we\u2019d like to work with them on any other forum in terms of moving forward our climate change ambitions. But this is practical action,\u201d White said. <\/p>\n

Then came the crunch <\/p>\n

All this is happening against the backdrop of a global energy shock, one which has focused minds in Westminster on shifting to clean power. <\/p>\n

\"\"Abby Wallace\/POLITICO<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been working together for years,\u201d White said from a park bench in northern Santiago. \u201cBut as the trip approached, it became more apparent that \u2026 energy being central to our relationship was even more relevant.\u201d <\/p>\n

As she spoke, U.K. gas prices had just hit 136 pence per therm, up roughly 75 percent since the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran. A barrel of brent crude \u2014 a benchmark for international oil prices \u2014 was $100, up almost 40 percent in the same five weeks.<\/p>\n

The conflict has rattled global energy markets. Forecasters expect a big jump in U.K. energy bills from July. Ministers and officials are wondering how to bail out hard-pressed families if costs spike in the summer and fall. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the kind of volatility from which the U.K. government is desperate to break free, by scaling-up even more wind and solar power at home. In the minds of ministers, the only answer is domestic renewables, insulated against international turbulence, and supply chain pacts with countries like Chile to build them. <\/p>\n

Shifting to a cleaner energy system is becoming more crucial \u201chour by hour,\u201d White said. Chancellor Rachel Reeves told G7 leaders last week to follow the U.K.\u2019s lead by rushing to go green as a way of beating future crises. <\/p>\n

Over 7,000 miles away, White planned to make the same overtures towards her Chilean counterparts. <\/p>\n

\u201cFirst and foremost, we need to make sure that we establish a good relationship with this government, and energy security [and] clean energy will be at the center of that,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Later in the week, White and Chile\u2019s new Energy Minister Ximena Rincon agreed to work together \u201cat pace to deliver the energy transition and build out resilient supply chains across renewable energy, electrification and nuclear,\u201d according to a note from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. <\/p>\n

The Ministry of Energy in Santiago did not respond to a request for an account of the meeting. <\/p>\n

No place for purists <\/p>\n

There is a reason White has trekked to the top of the Andes for all this. <\/p>\n

She may be here paving the way for a \u201cstrategic\u201d partnership with Chile, but the hours spent trekking up a glacier, her team in tow, were used to prepare for talks with the new government about teaming up on the move to clean power. <\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, for climate change reasons, I would like that shift to be as swift as possible,\u201d White said, as her car ferried her away from the glacier. And, she added, \u201cI would also like Britain to do pretty well out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The global rollout of renewables, and the cheap cost of tech like solar, was a \u201cpipe dream\u201d when she first started out on climate work in 2004. But now, she reckons, the green transition is \u201ccompletely unstoppable.\u201d <\/p>\n

There are deals to be made, White insisted. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some people who are trying to peddle a case that this is some kind of ideology,\u201d she said. But she rejects the idea green policies are to blame for politicians backing away from the climate agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a purist. I\u2019m not an ideologue,\u201d White said, as she headed back to the heart of Santiago. \u201cI\u2019m a practical Yorkshire woman, and this is a scientific question.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three-and-a-half thousand meters above sea level, chunks of icy rock tumble down the side of Chile\u2019s Juncal Glacier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4802,4803,13,4804,453,454,602,516,2439,517,455,586,234,519,528,1657,24,30,94,160,2739,4805,225,669,182,604,672,460,167,3880,6,461,4806],"class_list":{"0":"post-9948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-argentina","9":"tag-benchmarks","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-career","12":"tag-cars","13":"tag-chile","14":"tag-climate-change","15":"tag-conflict","16":"tag-conservation","17":"tag-crisis","18":"tag-electric-cars","19":"tag-emissions","20":"tag-energy","21":"tag-energy-markets","22":"tag-environment","23":"tag-growth","24":"tag-iran","25":"tag-israel","26":"tag-keir-starmer","27":"tag-markets","28":"tag-missions","29":"tag-ngos","30":"tag-oil","31":"tag-platforms","32":"tag-rachel-reeves","33":"tag-regulation","34":"tag-renewable-energy","35":"tag-security","36":"tag-supply-chains","37":"tag-tanks","38":"tag-united-kingdom","39":"tag-united-states","40":"tag-water"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116372806227473032","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}