UK Campaigner Calls Trump 'World's Number One Climate Criminal' Ahead Of State Visit

Nick Dearden, the director of UK-based think tank and advocacy group "Global Justice Now" (GJN) told Sputnik that US President Donald Trump is the "world's number one climate criminal," claiming the United Kingdom needed to be cautious about signing post-Brexit trade deals with the United States

LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th April, 2019) Nick Dearden, the director of UK-based think tank and advocacy group "Global Justice Now" (GJN) told Sputnik that US President Donald Trump is the "world's number one climate criminal," claiming the United Kingdom needed to be cautious about signing post-Brexit trade deals with the United States.

Trump's state visit to the United Kingdom this June will likely kick off further protests following eco-group Extinction Rebellion's sequence of actions across London, with activists looking to denounce the president's alleged role in exacerbating climate change.

"After the Extinction Rebellion protests last weekend, we're hoping to harness anger about lack of action on climate change and focus it on the world's number one climate criminal. We want to make sure that anywhere he [Trump] goes, he cannot escape the sound of protest," Dearden said.

He said that Trump was discredited as a politician by now.

"The last few weeks have made crystal clear that Trump is utterly discredited as a politician. Why on earth does an equally discredited [UK] Prime Minister [Theresa May] throw him a lifeline by giving him this honor? Because she's desperate for a post Brexit trade deal with the US to prove that her vision for Brexit can work. We need to be on our guard - such a trade deal would be disastrous for our country, our public services and our food standards," Dearden added.

Trump's visit would also involve a special appearance at the coastal city of Portsmouth to commemorate the seventy fifth anniversary of the commencement of Operation Overlord, also known as D-Day.

Trump's presence is expected to provoke wide-scale protests potentially on a level with previous demonstrations against his "working visit" in 2018. Last July saw some 250,000 UK citizens take to the streets in opposition to the presence of the US president, with campaigners believing public hostility may now be even greater.

Around 50 Labour MPs are also believed to have signed up to an Early Day Motion demanding the visit be canceled, with the motion apparently accusing the president of "misogynism, racism and xenophobia," according to PoliticsHome.

A controversial figure at home and abroad, Trump has attracted wide scale condemnation for his 2017 decision to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement on mitigating climate change. It is this move, specifically, that has proven particularly unpopular during a period of escalating concern over global warming, with over 1,000 environmental activists affiliated or supportive of the group Extinction Rebellion being arrested in protests across London over the past week.