US officials have missed recent international climate forums sparking concerns about a potentially significant shift from Donald Trump’s first term, a review of meeting records and interviews with meeting attendees by the Centre for Climate Reporting and the Guardian show.
The US Department of State official who sits on the committee does not appear to have attended a meeting last week, according to a livestream of the event, despite US representatives attending throughout Trump’s first term, meeting reports show.
While Trump left the agreement during his first term, US officials continued to play a leading role in meetings convened by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 1992 parent treaty to the Paris agreement.
“My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism,” he posted on X. Timo Leiter, a distinguished policy fellow at the London School of Economics who contributed to the previous IPCC assessment report, described the recent blocking of US scientists from the meeting this week as “another deeply troubling and worrying sign that the Trump administration is determined to outright ignore one of the biggest problems of humanity”.
Trump has also reportedly blocked US government scientists from attending a meeting this week of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as the group prepares its seventh major report on the state of the crisis.
