Billionaire entrepreneur Michael Bloomberg has express readiness to fund the United Nation climate change body though his foundation after the declaration by the United States President, Donald Trump that his country has withdraw from the Paris Agreement for the second time. Despite the US halting its contributions to the UN body, Bloomberg’s intervention is coming timely to ensure the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change remains fully funded.
Formally Washington used to make provision of 22 per cent of the UNFCCC secretariat’s budget, with the body’s operating costs for 2024-2025 projected at 88.4 million euros ($96.5 million).
Accordingly, the secretariat is tasked with supporting the global response to climate threats, and organises international climate conferences, the next of which will be COP30 to be held in Brazil come November 2025.
Contained in a statement released it says “From 2017 to 2020, during a period of federal inaction, cities, states, businesses and the public rose to the challenge to uphold our nation’s commitments — and now, we are ready to do it again,” Bloomberg, who serves as the UN special envoy on climate ambition and solutions.
This is the second time Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, has stepping in to fill the gap abandoned by US federal disengagement.
Similar incident happened during year 2017 when Trump administration’s first withdraws from the Paris accord, Bloomberg pledged up to $15m to support the UNFCCC.
Bloomberg also launched “America’s Pledge,” an initiative set to track and report US non-federal climate commitments, ensuring the world could monitor US progress as if it were still a fully committed party to the Paris Agreement.
The billionaire reiterated his commitment to upholding US reporting obligations this time as well.
“Contributions like this are vital in enabling the UN Climate Change secretariat to support countries in fulfilling their commitments under the Paris Agreement and advancing a low-emission, resilient and safer future for all,” said UN climate chief Simon Stiell.
A key architect of the Paris Climate Accord, Laurence Tubiana while speaking said “generous donation will allow the world to maintain a vital forum for cooperation on the fundamental challenge of our time, which no country can solve alone or afford to ignore.”
Shortly after coming on board by Trump on Monday, he announced the US’ withdrawal from the Paris accord agreement, which is managed by the UN climate change body, the umbrella that brings together almost all the world’s nations and aims to keep global average temperature rise below a certain threshold.
Trump also signed an executive order directing the United States to withdraw from the UN’s World Health Organisation, WHO, which had a budget of $7.89 billion in 2022-2023, with Washington contributing 16.3 per cent of the total, the move that others were not happy with.
AFP
