President Trump has been a vocal opponent of government-led efforts to combat climate change. But despite his rhetoric at home, reporting by Reuters finds that U.S. officials, from the State Department to federal agencies to government scientists, “remain active participants in international efforts to both research and fight climate change.”
“We really don’t detect any change with the Americans,” Aleksi Härkönen of Finland, who chairs the eight-nation Arctic Council’s key group of senior officials, told Reuters.
Since Trump took office last year, the U.S. has boosted funding for clean energy projects overseas, signed an international memoranda on a global effort to fight climate change, and continued to contribute global research on climate change, Reuters reported. The U.S. also sent a 40-person delegation to talks in Bonn, Germany, where it played a key role in helping draft a rulebook for implementing the Paris Agreement.
Myron Ebell, Trump’s former energy advisor and research director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the situation is the result of the administration failing to fill key positions, or replace staff who don’t share Trump’s agenda.
Reuters notes, however, that U.S. international climate work is counterbalanced by Trump’s rollback of environmental regulations and support of increased fossil fuel production at home. Read more.
