Formalising another withdrawal from both climate and foreign aid programs, the Trump administration has told world financial institutions that the US is pulling out of the landmark international climate Loss and Damage Fund.
Climate analysts on Monday (Mar 10) were critical of the Treasury Department’s decision to formally pull out from the fund designed as compensation for damage by polluting nations to poor countries especially hurt by the extreme storms, heat and drought caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas. A Treasury official said in a letter last week that the US board members of the fund were resigning but gave no reason for the withdrawal.
“It’s a great shame to see the US going back on its promises,” said Mohamed Adow, founder of Power Shift Africa and a veteran of United Nations climate negotiations. “This decision will result in great suffering for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world. These people have contributed the least to the climate emergency they are now living through.”
The Treasury did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
When the fund was agreed upon in 2022, then-president Joe Biden pledged that the US, the world’s biggest historic carbon dioxide emitter, would contribute US$17.5 million. A dozen countries that have polluted less – Australia, Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom – and the European Union have pledged more than the US
The two biggest pledges – US$104 million – came from Italy and France. As of January, the Loss and Damage Fund had US$741.42 million in pledges, according to the United Nations.
“The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Loss and Damage Fund is yet another cruel action that will hurt climate vulnerable lower income nations the most,” said Rachel Cleetus, policy director of the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “The richest nation and the world’s biggest contributor to global heat-trapping emissions is choosing to punch down and walk away from its responsibility toward nations that have contributed the least to the climate crisis and yet are bearing an unjust burden from it.”
Poorer nations, often in the global south, had long framed the fund as one of environmental justice. It was an idea that the US and many rich nations blocked until 2022, when they accepted the creation but insisted it was not reparations.
“Three long decades and we have finally delivered climate justice,” Seve Paeniu, the finance minister of Tuvalu, said when the UN climate negotiations established the fund. “We have finally responded to the call of hundreds of millions of people across the world to help them address loss and damage.”
In its first 50 days, the Trump administration has eliminated or cut funding for environmental justice domestically, foreign aid, climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion. The president also started the one-year process to once again pull out of the historic 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Earlier this month, the US withdrew from a special climate agreement in which rich nations help small, poor nations switch to cleaner energy.
