The United Nations annual climate summit is now under way in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, with some 32,000 representatives from the world negotiating over how to tackle the climate crisis.
This year’s conference is focused on providing financing to countries that are most affected by rising sea levels, flooding and storms.
The estimated need is substantial, with up to $2 trillion annually needed from private and government sources to help build infrastructure to protect countries from the ravages caused by climate change and to help them reduce their carbon emissions to slow climate change.
The global summit is of course overshadowed by the re-election of Donald Trump as president. Trump, who has called climate change “a hoax,” is expected to walk out of the landmark Paris Agreement for the second time and to reduce carbon-cutting commitments.
But a top Democrat from the Biden administration, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, will attend the conference to “reassure the international community that large swaths of the U.S. remain committed to steering the planet away from climate catastrophe.”
Indeed, many states, including Minnesota, have and will continue to develop programs to reduce climate change.
It will be unfortunate that the United States will not be a world leader in the climate change effort over the next few years. But other countries will work to fill the void. And U.S. states will continue to make positive changes independent of the federal government.
Helping countries protect from climate change and reduce carbon emissions isn’t just a benefit for them, but for the world. As sea levels rise and flooding intensifies, millions of people are displaced and face possible starvation as well as increased violence and war.
Reducing those dangers makes the United States and other nations better off.