Climate scientists sound alarm on US absence at key UN meetings

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Top scientists have said they may struggle to make progress on work that underpins the most trusted UN-led global assessment of the causes and effects of climate change without the participation of US counterparts who have been absent from critical meetings since the start of the second Trump administration.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading climate science body, has been gathering this week in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou to outline and budget for the seventh iteration of its landmark report, which underpins many governments’ and companies’ plans on how to deal with global warming.

But the absence of US federal scientists has cast a shadow on the meeting, which relies on voluntary contributions from its 195 member countries. 

The US is also expected to withdraw funding from the organisation following the move by President Donald Trump to quit the Paris climate agreement. It has contributed at least SFr53.4mn ($59.2mn) to the IPCC since its inception, more than any other country.

“The withdrawal of US federal support weakens the IPCC’s collective ability to provide the science the world needs to help tackle the climate crisis,” Delta Merner, a member of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a blog post.

The UCS also drew attention to the lay-offs of what it said were hundreds of employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this week.

“Decimating the nation’s core scientific enterprise, even as costly and deadly climate change impacts and extreme weather events worsen, flies in the face of logic, common sense and fiscal responsibility,” said Juan Declet-Barreto of the UCS. “Censoring science does not change the facts about climate change.”

The US was also absent from the UN’s biodiversity summit in Rome this week, where countries agreed on a strategy to mobilise billions of dollars a year to protect nature and reverse biodiversity loss.

Despite being one of only two UN member states, along with the Holy See, that has not ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the US has still usually sent an envoy to participate in the negotiations.

Several non-profit organisations in Rome said the lack of US involvement was a stark demonstration of how the Trump administration had positioned itself in opposition to global efforts to address climate change and biodiversity loss. Conservation projects in developing countries have been among those hit by Trump’s freeze on US Agency for International Development funding. 

COP16 president Susana Muhamad, from Colombia, said the US contribution was essential for tackling biodiversity loss and protecting nature. “We cannot do it without the US,” she said.

Not only were US funds necessary, the environmental impact of the world’s biggest economy and largest historical polluter made climate action from there vital, she added.