While visiting Vietnam, President Trump dines on shark fin soup instead of his customary well-done steak. Shark finning has been banned in the United States since 2000, and the soup is illegal in the state of California.

A week before the start of deer season, Wisconsin eliminates the minimum age at which children can hunt. 

By a vote of 13 to 10, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee votes to authorize oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The measure now heads to the full Senate as part of the Republican-sponsored tax bill, where the estimated $1.1 billion in revenues from drilling is slated to offset substantial tax reductions for the wealthiest Americans.

TransCanada shuts down the Keystone pipeline after it leaks 210,000 gallons of oil in northeastern South Dakota. 

Largely because of the fracking boom, the International Energy Agency expects the United States to become a net exporter of oil and natural gas within 10 years.

Summit Texas Clean Energy, the company behind the only remaining proposed carbon-capture-and-storage coal-fired power plant in the United States, files for bankruptcy protection. 

Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest mining company, seeks to sell off its remaining coal mines in Australia and exit the coal business altogether.

Senate Republicans confirm David Zatezalo, the former head of a coal company with a history of serious safety violations, as head of the Mine Health and Safety Administration. 

Volunteer rescuers in Aceh, Indonesia, save six of 10 beached sperm whales.

Egyptian singer Sherine Abdel-Wahab faces charges of “harming the public interest” after joking about the quality of water from the Nile.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service authorizes the annual “lethal removal” of 51,571 double-crested cormorants, largely to benefit the catfish-farming industry. 

Smog in the Indian capital of Delhi is so bad that anti-smog helicopters (they sprinkle water to reduce particulate matter) are unable to fly.

After three flat years, global carbon emissions are expected to rise again by 2 percent in 2017.

The United States delegation at COP23, the UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany, argues for a “balanced approach” to energy that includes coal and other fossil fuels. Many in the audience walk out.