Trump’s
latest blow to climate
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By David
Stringer and Jennifer
A. Dlouhy
President Donald
Trump extended the US retreat from global
cooperation on climate action by signaling a withdrawal
from flagship international organizations,
including the main United Nations and scientific
bodies focused on the issue.
The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and
the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
are among a total of 66
groups the US will exit, spanning multiple
sectors. The climate moves are seen as likely to
diminish the US role in addressing greenhouse
gas emissions, and significantly limit the
global influence of those entities.
Donald
Trump Photographer: Nicole
Combeau/Bloomberg
Trump’s actions are
in line with his domestic policy changes aimed
at removing curbs on pollution and fossil fuels,
and follow a decision in January 2025 to begin a
year-long process to quit the Paris Agreement,
the binding 2015 accord to combat global
warming. He made a similar decision during his
first term in office.
The move is a “gift
to China and a get out of jail free card to
countries and polluters who want to avoid
responsibility,” said John Kerry, a former US
secretary of state and special presidential
envoy for climate during the Biden
administration. “It’s another self-inflicted
wound on the world stage.”
A spokesperson for
the UNFCCC didn’t immediately respond to a
request for comment.
Trump’s second term
has delivered an acceleration of efforts to roll
back action to tackle climate change,
which he has labeled a “hoax” and “the greatest
con job.” Funding programs or tax
incentives from his predecessor Joe Biden’s era
covering areas like clean energy and electric
vehicles have been scrapped, renewables projects
halted, research grants frozen or canceled, and
public access to some climate-related
data limited.
The administration
is quitting bodies considered “to be redundant
in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary,
wasteful, poorly run,” and advancing agendas
contrary to those of the US, Secretary of
State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
Exiting the UNFCCC
would formally withdraw the US from the UN
institution that rallies nations to set
increasingly ambitious targets on emissions
reductions, and coordinates the annual global
COP summits to advance action on areas like
decarbonization and climate finance. US
officials were absent from the most recent
talks in Brazil last year.
The decision by the
world’s largest economy and second-largest
emitter to walk away “is regrettable and
unfortunate,” said Wopke Hoekstra, the European
Union’s climate commissioner, in a comment
posted on social media.
“We will unequivocally continue to support
international climate research, as the
foundation of our understanding and work.”
Wopke
Hoekstra Photographer: Andrey
Rudakov/Bloomberg
The US withdrawal
poses “the most serious challenge to
international climate efforts since the adoption
of the Paris Agreement,” said Li Shuo, the
director of China Climate Hub at the Asia
Society Policy Institute. “For China, the move
means one less competitor in the clean
technology race.”
“The US stands
alone in its stance on climate,” said Germany’s
environment minister, Carsten Schneider. Other
countries “have committed to doing everything
possible to limit global warming to 1.5C this
century.”
By quitting the
UNFCCC, any future administration would likely
face a more complex task to rejoin global
climate efforts. In 2021, Biden moved to reenter
the Paris pact immediately after his
inauguration.
With assistance
from Lili Pike, Eric Roston, Petra Sorge, John
Ainger and Laura Millan
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