Boykoff: The world cooperates on the climate while the US isolates
Last week was the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, with a flurry of surrounding Climate Week events in New York City. The official theme was “Better together,” focusing on “the urgency of delivering on the promise of the Sustainable Development Goals and reinvigorating global cooperation.”
Last Tuesday, President Donald J. Trump spoke to world leaders and the viewing public for nearly an hour in the UN Headquarters. Among his remarks, President Trump called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” as he encouraged the 193 member states to “get away from the green energy scam” or “your country is going to fail.”
This was a much bolder, isolationist stance than his podium performance at the UN General Assembly Hall seven years earlier. While still boastful, parts of his 2018 speech were met with laughter. The subtle destabilizing power of this mirth clearly surprised the U.S. president. After the chuckling subsided, he replied, “I didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s okay.”
Last Tuesday, no one was heard laughing. Yet, other nations’ world leaders and government representatives continued with their work while the Trump Administration voluntarily put the U.S. on the sidelines.
On that same Tuesday last week — also on the grounds of the NYC UN Headquarters — the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, the Federative Republic of Brazil, and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) convened a “High-Level Solutions Dialogue on Information Integrity on Climate Change” in the much smaller Dag Hammarskjöld library. This was just over a year since the UN Secretary-General launched the UN Global Principles for Information Integrity, noting that threats to information integrity have come in many forms, including mis- and disinformation, suppression of freedoms of expression (e.g. free speech and freedom of the press in many countries), communication echo chambers, hate speech, and risks emerging from AI tech and polarization.
About 40 participants interrogated climate mis- and disinformation through media, advertising, public relations firms and other communication pathways, examining how mis- and disinformation tactics threaten to delay, distract from and derail climate action. Many fossil fuel interests — with coordinated politically-, strategically- or financially-motivated supporting actors and organizations — have effectively manipulated public perception, casting doubt about climate science, and stalling action while effectively deepening the climate crisis. In this convening, we shared insights, best practices and evidence-based interventions to assist in accelerating climate action and implementing initiatives in line with the 2015 UN Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Discussions from this roundtable were shared at the UN General Assembly Climate Summit the following day (last Wednesday).
With recognition that there remains much active work ahead (now not including the U.S. administration), nearly 100 countries — representing about two-thirds of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — discussed their resolve through ongoing commitments to reduce planet-warming GHG emissions. These efforts also build momentum towards the next UN climate negotiations (COP30) in Belém, Brazil, in mid-November. The dialogue was a multilateral collaboration to place information integrity on the COP30 action agenda for the first time in the UN climate negotiations.
In the meantime, you may have seen the news that the Trump Administration is actively removing U.S. National Parks’ communications and signage about threats of climate change. Also, there was news last Friday that an email from U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable was leaked stating that “words to avoid” have expanded to now include “green,” “sustainability,” “sustainable,” “climate change,” “energy transition,” “‘clean’ or ‘dirty’ energy,” “carbon/CO2 footprint,” and “decarbonization.” And in the international arena, the Trump administration has pulled U.S. funding for key UN programs, while withdrawing the U.S. from the UN Human Rights Council and announcing (in an unprecedented action in the history of the process) that the U.S. won’t participate in a UN review of its own human rights record.
Resistance to intersecting global sustainability and climate challenges does not make for greatness in our neighborhoods or our parks, nor in our nation or in the global community. This creates friction for short-term progress on environmentally related issues in the U.S. This exacerbates suffering around the world. Yet the collective action work continues internationally despite the Trump Administration’s isolationism.
This is a biweekly sustainability and environment column authored by Max Boykoff. Max is a faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder, though the views expressed here are based upon his scholarly expertise and research/creative experience as well as personal views and should not be considered the university’s official position on any specific issue.