“No future”: Climate projects face existential threat after Trump’s aid shutdown
Published on 05/02/2025, 6:10pm
The Trump administration’s attack on USAID puts at risk close to $500 million a year in grant-based climate funding for developing countries
Climate projects face existential threat after Trump's aid shutdow
Boxes of relief items from U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for the victims of super typhoon Haiyan, at Villamor Air Base in Manila November 13, 2013. REUTERS/Cheryl Ravelo/File Photo
By Matteo Civillini
A new programme to boost the climate resilience of drought-hit farmers in Iraq. Electricity installations that would give millions across Southern Africa access to clean energy. The conservation of critical ecosystems in Honduras to help local communities improve their livelihoods at home instead of needing to migrate to countries like the United States.
These and hundreds more climate programmes funded by the US government risk disappearing as an administration led by President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk threatens to shutter the state aid agency, USAID, and slash overseas development assistance.
“I think this is the end of US [government] climate funding,” predicted Karen Mathiasen, a project director with the Center for Global Development, a Washington-based think-tank. In an interview with Climate Home, she described as “shocking” the speed and brazenness with which the government is attempting to dismantle its foreign aid arm.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2025/02/05/no-future-climate-projects-face-existential-threat-after-trumps-aid-shutdown/
