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France will shut down all of its coal-fired power plants by 2021, President Emmanuel Macron announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The deadline is two years ahead of his predecessor Francois Hollande's goal of shutting down France's coal-powered plants by 2023.
France only produces around 1 percent of its energy from coal-fired stations, as the country is 99 percent dependent on hydrocarbon imports. However, the move from the world's fifth largest economy shows it is determined to be a leader on climate issues and sends a signal to other nations.
During his speech to politicians and business leaders on Wednesday, the French president said he wanted to "make France a model in the fight against climate change."
Macron's "Make Our Planet Great Again" program casts environmental protection as a pillar in reforming the country's economy.
"That is a huge advantage in terms of attractiveness and competitiveness," he said. "Talent will come where it is good to live. We can create a lot of jobs with such a strategy."
Last month, the French parliament passed a law banning the exploration and production of all oil and natural gas by 2040 within mainland France and all overseas territories. France also plans to ban the sale of diesel and petrol engine cars by 2040.
At Davos, Macron stressed that warming needs to be kept within the 2 degrees Celsius
 limit set at the Paris climate agreement.
"On climate change, we're losing the battle," he said, adding that the world needs concrete action and results by 2020.
Macron's climate policies are in stark contrast to President Donald Trump's push for fossil fuels.
As USA TODAY reported, Macron's opening remarks included a joke about his American counterpart's infamous climate change denial.
"When you arrive here and see the snow, it could be hard to believe in global warming," Macron said. "Obviously you don't invite anyone skeptical about global warming this year."
Trump arrived in Switzerland Thursday to attend the World Economic Forum and to promote his "America First" agenda.
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America's national bird is threatened by hunters. Not that hunters are taking aim at the iconic bald eagle, but bald eagles are dying after eating lead bullets, as CNN reported.
A jury in Missouri awarded a farmer $265 million in a lawsuit that claimed Bayer and BASF's weedkiller destroyed his peach orchard, as Reuters reported.
A coalition of local and national groups on Friday launched a legal challenge to a Louisiana state agency's decision to approve air permits for a $9.4 billion petrochemical complex that Taiwan-based Formosa Plastics Group plans to build in the region nationally known as "Cancer Alley."
Shrinking Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante: Trump’s Monumental Mistake
Well, he told us he would do it. And now he's actually doing it — or at least trying to. Late last week, President Trump, via the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management, announced that he was formalizing his plan to develop lands that once belonged within the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in southern Utah. The former is a stunningly beautiful, ecologically fragile landscape that has played a crucial role in Native American culture in the Southwest for thousands of years; the latter, just as beautiful, is one of the richest and most important paleontological sites in North America.
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By Julie McNamara
First, a fact: People want clean air. And who can blame them — in the United States more than 100,000 people still die from air pollution each year.