The hot air coming from Donald Trump's White House threatens to send America's greenhouse gas emissions through the roof. Yet at the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic, European countries are announcing even stricter targets in a bid to beat climate change.
At the beginning of February, Sweden's government announced it aimed to phase out greenhouse gas emissions by 2045, one of the toughest targets in the world. Finland says it is aiming for a similar date.
Emissions and climate change were high on the agenda this week as Europe's environment ministers met in Brussels. They announced a reform on the Emissions Trading Scheme aimed at boosting prices of carbon allowances, which is expected to make cutting emissions more attractive for businesses.
The European Union has a target of reducing emissions by 20% by 2020 and 40% by 2030 compared with levels in 1990. In 2014, emissions were already down by 22.9% compared to 1990.
Our chart this week shows how various European countries are doing against 1990 levels. The Baltic States are doing best but the UK and Nordic countries are also making good progress. Southern European states are doing less well, with Malta actually increasing its emissions.
The challenge for business travel in all this is reducing emissions due to aviation.
Transport's share of the emissions pie has grown substantially since 1990 as the above pie charts show and the likelihood is that its share will continue to grow. One of the challenges is that new aircraft take a long time to reach the market.
While new 'greener' aircraft such as the 767 are now on the market, new developments may take decades. A new €12 billion innovation fund announced by the environment ministers this week could help but there will need to be a technological leap to ensure that business travellers do not become even bigger environmental pariahs.