The sharp political divisions in the United States over climate change spilled over to the outside world at the United Nations conference that will likely be remembered for two rival delegations that showed up from the U.S, Los Angeles Times reports.
As Trump administration officials attending a U.N. climate change conference in Bonn made headlines for promoting coal as an energy source for the future, an alliance of cities, states, companies and universities from across the United States tacitly usurped the federal government’s role and sought to assure an anxious international community that vast numbers of Americans remain committed to the 2015 Paris accord designed to fight climate change.
Each country is ordinarily represented by one official delegation at international gatherings, and the presence of two competing camps from the United States created an extraordinary atmosphere at the conference, which ended Friday. It was the first such gathering on climate change since President Trump decided in June to pull the United States out of the Paris accord.
The loud and colorful U.S. coalition of cities and states that supports the Paris agreement and action against climate change not only stole the show in Bonn with its gigantic pavilion featuring free beer and high-spirited panel discussions, but it managed to help galvanize the other 195 countries in the Paris pact against the Trump administration.
“We can’t just wait for our national leaders — we need to take action together,” California Gov. Jerry Brown told a panel discussion in Bonn. Brown was appointed as a special advisor for states and regions by the U.N. conference president.
Along with Bloomberg, other prominent Americans promoting the fight against climate change and distancing themselves from the Trump administration were former Vice President Al Gore and Democratic Sens. Ben Cardin of Maryland, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
"When President Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the Paris agreement, some people worried that it meant the end of America's climate leadership — but I think that can't be farther from the truth," Bloomberg said.
The official U.S. delegation in Bonn, led by Trump’s special assistant on energy and the environment, George David Banks, was unabashedly proactive in getting out its message at its only official appearance. Even though the conference as a whole aimed to shift the global economy away from fossil fuels, Banks led a panel discussion entitled, “The Role of Cleaner and More Efficient Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power in Climate Mitigation.”
"While the U.S. official presence was subdued in the negotiations, the surge of sub-national action in the U.S. is undeniable," said Paula Caballero, global director of the climate program at the World Resources Institute, in a statement at the end of the conference on Friday. "Having already abandoned its leadership role, the Trump administration appears to be living in an alternate universe with its ill-advised focus on fossil fuels."