As the sole federal elected official at the COP30 climate conference, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse sought to show the world that President Donald Trump’s hostility toward global climate agreements is not representative of the United States as a whole.
And upon his return to Washington this week, he warned of an international climate community ready to charge forward without the United States. China, in particular, was “very dominant” in its public-facing presence at the conference, Whitehouse said.
“I think there’s a lot of determination to go forward without us. It doesn’t do America any good, but I do think the progress will continue to be made,” Whitehouse said in an interview.
Whitehouse, the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, was the only member of Congress to travel to the talks last week in Belém, Brazil. A Democratic House trip and a bipartisan Senate delegation were both scrapped due to the government shutdown that ended last week.
