The United States has been the largest contributor to funding the organization.
Billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has pledged that Bloomberg Philanthropies will fill the funding gap for the United Nations’ climate body in response to anticipated cuts from the Trump administration.
In a public statement on Thursday, Bloomberg Philanthropies said it will step up its financial support for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to keep the organization fully funded.
Established in 1994, UNFCCC organizes annual global climate conferences and tracks and monitors its members’ progress toward long-term climate goals. The organization’s core budget is primarily funded by contributions from member governments, with the United States traditionally paying the largest dues.
In 2024, UNFCCC received 10.6 million euros, ($11 million) from the United States. Under the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, the United States is expected to cover 21.4 percent of the organization’s budget, significantly more than any other member.
In one of his first-day executive orders, President Donald Trump once again withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement. The order also directs the U.N. ambassador and the Treasury Department to “immediately cease or revoke any purported financial commitment” made under the UNFCCC.
The largest non-state funder of the UNFCCC, Bloomberg Philanthropies, increased its donation to the organization during Trump’s first term. Its contribution level continued through the Biden administration.
“From 2017 to 2020, during a period of federal inaction, cities, states, businesses, and the public rose to the challenge to uphold our nation’s commitments—and now, we are ready to do it again,” Bloomberg, who serves as the U.N. secretary general’s special envoy on climate ambition and solutions, said in Thursday’s statement.
Simon Stiell, executive secretary of U.N. Climate Change, welcomed the move, calling the contributions “vital” in helping the organization “support countries in fulfilling their commitments under the Paris Agreement and advancing a low-emission, resilient, and safer future for all.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has reaffirmed its opposition to the Paris deal, which committed 196 countries to a goal of limiting the average global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. In Trump’s executive order published within hours of him taking the oath of office, it said international climate agreements aren’t in line with American values and “steer American taxpayer dollars to countries that do not require, or merit, financial assistance in the interests of the American people.”
Trump’s second Paris Agreement withdrawal was accompanied by a series of executive orders, including a declaration of a national energy emergency, focused on boosting domestic oil and gas production.
“The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices, and that is why today I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill,” Trump said during his inaugural speech on Jan. 20.
“America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it.”
For now, the United States remains a member of UNFCCC.