In announcing a $35 billion program to bring inexpensive solar power to some 300 million Africans, officials left out two words: climate change.

Some $35 billion is aimed at building small solar sites in rural areas and other improvements. The World Bank chief called the project “foundational to everything.”

The United States will be one of only four countries outside the Paris Agreement, which is designed to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

When it comes to gas exports and competition with China, the two administrations share a similar vision, the top U.S. energy diplomat says.

As a researcher at several universities and an adviser at NASA, he used data analysis to show how the planet’s different systems are interrelated.