Trump’s development aid cuts could jeopardise up to 10% of global climate financing. Analysis conducted by Carbon Brief shows that the USA – the world’s fourth largest national provider of international climate finance – accounted for over 8% of international climate finance in 2024, with USAid providing around a third of the country’s climate finance in recent years. Trump’s executive orders pausing foreign aid, revoking the USA’s international climate finance plan and withdrawal from the Paris Agreement could have implications for other sources of climate finance. Ritu Bharadwaj, a climate-finance principal researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), highlights that other American financial instruments will be influenced by Trump’s decision: “If these mechanisms remain intact while grant-based finance is gutted, it signals a shift away from public, needs-based funding toward finance that prioritises US commercial and strategic interests. In other words, what little climate finance remains will likely benefit US corporations first, rather than frontline communities.”
