Freezing USAD financing is given a big blow to climate finance

The abrupt freezing of the USASID financing has sent shock waves through the world of development and endangered billions of dollars for climate adaptation and resilience programs. If the United States withdraws from its climate obligations and other major donors, the world is surprised – who will intervene to close the gap?

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The US Agency for International Development (USA) has long been a cornerstone of international development aid. On January 20, the agency's status, as the largest bilateral donor in the world, was revoked by a 90-day financing frier. The future of USAID is now in balance.

The wave effects of this measure were already profound. The agency was forced to stop all activities and to give almost all financing recipients stop work orders. USAID website has become completely dark, the employees were completed from their e -mail accounts and the access to their offices was excluded. The Trump government has already started to terminate hundreds of contracts and grants and to make people around the world uncertain about the future.

While a federal judge ordered a reversal of financing freezing for existing programs at the end of last week, every new financing is still blocked. These developments have increased the growing uncertainty about international climate obligations and could endanger the efforts to receive financial support for the climate crisis.

Freeze the financing Fallout

As the main vehicle for the support of US development, USAID is an important provider of climate-related means. In 2024 alone, the agency attracted almost half a billion dollars for climate programs that were aimed at clean energy, sustainable landscapes and climate adjustments.

Key programs that played an important role in the event of a reduction and adaptation have become dark and threaten to be completely closed if the examinations for the efficiency of the agency are carried out.

Servir is among the affected programs, which helps countries to predict weather -related threats such as droughts or floods via satellite data. In 1991 a catastrophic cyclone hit the 5 Bangladesh category and killed 138,000 people. In contrast, the early warning system from Servir alerted when a category 4 cyclone developed in the same area that people were over the upcoming danger and gave them enough time to protect themselves. This time only 145 people lost their lives.

The accelerator of climate finance and development aimed to mobilize $ 2.5 billion through private partnerships, and the climate and gender stock funds, which contributes to the fact that companies are led, were also affected.

The abrupt setting of these programs is not only a financial setback-sie threatens global resilience and undermines the long-term development goals, especially for the most climate-loving nations.

A symptom of another trend

The USAID financing freezing is not an isolated action. It comes in a broader movement to move away from multilateral cooperation and to bring back the US climate policy. Since his inauguration, Donald Trump has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and reduced the financing to the UNFCCC – the USA provides a fifth of the convent's budget. All air-conditioned information has been completely removed from the Foreign Ministry's website, and a new execution regulations this week even introduced plastic straws to a plastic stalls that signal open disregard for environmental problems.

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These measures have greater uncertainty in a climate landscape that has already been turbulence. Experts estimate that at least 2 trillion dollars have to be mobilized annually in order to achieve the goals of the Paris agreement. However, large donors such as France and Germany have drastically reduced their development budgets in recent years. With 10% of global climateinancing from the USA, the way to bridge the financing gap under the new administration will even be steeper.

At COP29 last year, a new destination for climate finance should mobilize at least 300 billion US dollars a year for developing countries. This goal largely depends on countries with high incomes to protect themselves from the protection of these countries from climate junk. In the closure of the conference, the executive director of the UNFCCC Simon Steell described the goal of “an insurance policy for humanity, since the effects of the climate deteriorate on every country. He also added: “Like every insurance policy, it only works if the premiums are paid in full and on time.”

With COP30 on the horizon, the risk of this goal grows before it even becomes effective. The USAID -Financing freezing, combined with growing uncertainty from other large donors, undermines its potential success. Without re -commitment from countries with high incomes, trust in the climate adaptation agreements will only continue to erode, so that native nations will increasingly become increasingly uncertain about their ability to combat a crisis that they have not created.

Uncertainty lies ahead of us

Only the time will show whether USAid will survive the ongoing attacks by the Trump administration. Three complaints from auxiliary groups have already been submitted in the coming weeks, and more will be expected in the coming weeks. However, the government has made its feelings very clear to the global climate agenda, and it is unlikely that one of these programs will be restored without significant political changes after checking the agency.

The consequences of these measures will be far-reaching only for low-income countries, but also for the USA. The irony of these executive commands that are signed when forest fires were burned by Los Angeles should not be lost. Climate change does not respect the borders. It is an artificial problem and every country has a collective responsibility to tackle it. As the largest pollution in the world, the United States should undoubtedly have a larger part of this burden than most of most debts.

The decision to withdraw from global climate measures ultimately provides life, economies and future security. The rollback of the obligations to finance climate finance undermines progress only at a time when urgent measures are more necessary than ever. The world will observe closely when the United States navigates the consequences of these decisions – and how other countries have difficulty filling the emptiness that left behind.

Selected picture: Paddy O'Sullivan/Unplash.