American officials are expected to skip a board meeting for the world’s largest climate fund next week, in an indication of how the U.S. could pull back from international climate efforts under President Donald Trump.
The U.N.-brokered Green Climate Fund provides billions of dollars in assistance to poorer nations for responding to rising temperatures. The United States has long held a seat on its board.
But a spokesperson for the fund told POLITICO’s E&E News that the U.S. board member, identified as Victoria Gunderson on the fund’s website, has informed the Green Climate Fund that she and her alternate will not be attending the meeting, which is set to start Monday in South Korea.
“This is just a doubling down on the withdrawal from Paris and will only hurt the U.S. itself by sidelining U.S. views and objectives in that process,” said David Waskow, director of the international climate initiative at the World Resources Institute, an environmental group.
