WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential prospect Michael Bloomberg is promoting a new documentary film on climate change, but the billionaire philanthropist says the one person he thinks should see it most — President Donald Trump — likely never will because “it won’t be running on Fox.”
“The president really could learn a lot from towns and cities featured in the documentary and which are taking action on climate change,” Bloomberg, a former New York City mayor, said Wednesday at a Washington screening of the film “Paris to Pittsburgh,” which he produced.
“If he’s not willing to listen to his own administration’s scientific advisers — and he isn’t — he should at least listen to the people in this film,” Bloomberg later added.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday night.
Bloomberg’s film gets its name from Trump. When the president withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement in 2017, he said it was because he was elected to “represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” But Trump was quickly rebuked by Pittsburgh’s mayor, Bill Peduto, who said the decision was “disastrous for our planet, for cities such as Pittsburgh” and a step that “has made America weaker.”
Bloomberg has not yet said if he will run for president in 2020. But in the run-up to his possible Democratic bid, he has promoted the millions of his own fortune that he has invested in climate change initiatives across the US
That’s one way he has contrasted himself with many of the other Democrats who are running.
Virtually every top Democratic White House contender has embraced the recently proposed Green New Deal. The nonbinding resolution outlined ambitious plans to cut slash greenhouse gas emissions over 10 years while instituting massive investments in wind and solar production, energy-efficient buildings and high-speed rail.
But Bloomberg said the likely reality is that nothing will get done in the next two years while Trump is president and Republicans control the Senate.
“Every voter should ask the candidates not just what do you promise to do,” he said, “but also what have you done, what have you delivered and how can we implement in a practical way your proposals.”
Bloomberg rips Trump for not taking action on climate change
Bloomberg rips Trump for not taking action on climate change
India hosts global leaders, tech moguls at AI Impact Summit
- 20 heads of state scheduled to attend event which runs until Feb. 20
- Summit expected to speed up adoption of AI in India’s governance, expert says
NEW DELHI: A global artificial intelligence summit opened in New Delhi on Monday, with representatives of more than 60 countries scheduled to discuss the use and regulation of AI with the industry’s leaders and investors.
The India AI Impact Summit 2026 is hosted by the Indian government’s IndiaAI Mission — an initiative worth in excess of $1 billion and launched by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in 2024 to develop the AI ecosystem in the country.
After five days of sessions and an accompanying exhibition of 300 companies at Bharat Mandapam — the venue of the 2023 G20 summit — participating leaders are expected to sign a declaration which, according to the organizer, will outline a “shared road map for global AI governance and collaboration.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will attend the summit on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, said on X it was a “matter of great pride for us that people from around the world are coming to India” for the event, which is evidence that the country is “rapidly advancing in the fields of science and technology and is making a significant contribution to global development.”
Among the 20 heads of state that the Indian Ministry of External Affairs has announced as scheduled to attend are Macron, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, and Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince.
Also expected are tech moguls such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Google’s chief Sundar Pichai.
The summit will give India, the world’s most populous country, a platform to try to steer cooperation and AI regulation between the West and the Global South, and to present to the global audience its own technological development.
“India is leveraging its position as a bridge between emerging and developed economies to bring together not just country leaders and technologists, but also delegates, policy analysts, media, and others … to explore the facets of AI, multilateral collaborations, and the direction that large-scale development of AI should take,” said Anwesha Sen, assistant program manager for technology and policy at Takshashila Institution.
“India is trying to do three things through the AI Impact Summit. One, India is advocating for sovereign AI and the development of inclusive, population-scale solutions. Two, establishing international collaborations that prioritize AI diffusion in sectors like healthcare and agriculture. And three, showcasing how Indian startups and organizations are using frameworks such as that of digital public infrastructure as a model to bridge the two.”
It is the fourth such gathering dedicated to the development of AI. The first one was held in the UK in 2023, a year after the debut of ChatGPT; the 2024 meeting in South Korea; and last year’s event took place in France.
The summit is likely to help the Indian government in speeding up the adoption of AI, according to Nikhil Pahwa, digital rights activist and founder of MediaNama, a mobile and digital news portal, who likened it to the Digital India initiative launched in 2015 to provide digital government services.
“A summit like this, with this much bandwidth allocated to it by the government, even if the agenda is flat, ends up making AI a priority focus for ministries and state governments,” Pahwa told Arab News.
“It encourages diffusion of AI execution-specific thinking and ends up increasing adoption of AI in governance and by both central and state-level ministries. That reduces time for adoption of AI.
“We saw this play out with the government’s Digital India focus: it increased digitization and the adoption of digital technology. The agenda and India’s role in AI globally is less important than speeding up adoption.”
