Washington, D.C. — World leaders will gather in Bonn, Germany, next week for the first major U.N. conference on climate change since President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement.
Ahead of this gathering, a new issue brief from the Center for American Progress shows how leaders outside the federal government can advance the goals of the Paris Agreement by supporting low-carbon and climate-resilient development in the most vulnerable developing countries.
Since the Paris withdrawal announcement, nonfederal leaders nationwide have created a landscape of climate initiatives and alliances to show that the United States remains largely committed to the global fight against climate change. These include cities, states, businesses, universities, tribes, and nongovernmental groups.
For these nascent coalitions to truly take up the mantle of U.S. climate leadership, however, they must complement efforts to reduce their own emissions with efforts to support international climate finance and cooperation, the brief says.
“The U.S. nonfederal climate movement is now at a point where it could develop beyond its focus on domestic emissions reductions to more comprehensively support the Paris Agreement,” said Gwynne Taraska, associate director of Energy and Environment Policy at CAP and co-author of the issue brief.
Such an effort would not only benefit the most vulnerable developing countries, it would also help maintain global political momentum for ambitious action on climate change.
Read the issue brief: “Advancing the U.S. nonfederal movement to support the Paris Agreement” by Gwynne Taraska and Howard Marano.
For more information on this topic or to speak with an expert, contact Sam Hananel at [email protected] or 202.478.6327.