President Trump was under attack yesterday as world leaders lined up to criticise his stance on climate change ahead of the global COP30 summit.
The US leader, who is absent from the gathering in the Amazonian city of Belém, was called a liar for his rejection of climate science and “against humankind” for his rollback of key climate policies.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer acknowledged the waning political consensus on the issue. He said climate change was once a unity issue but “today however, sadly that consensus is gone”.
Over the next two weeks countries will try and negotiate a new deal on climate change, with a particular focus on channelling more money to forest protection.
Many leaders from the world’s largest nations – India, Russia, US and China – are notably absent from this year’s summit.
And whilst President Donald Trump isn’t attending this meeting in Belém, his views on climate change are certainly on the minds of many of the other leaders present.
Speaking at the UN in September, the US president said that climate change was “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”, and refuted the use of renewable energy.
He said: “The entire globalist concept, asking successful industrialised nations to inflict pain on themselves and radically disrupt their entire societies, must be rejected completely and totally.”
Without naming the US leader, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil warned yesterday of “extremist forces that fabricate fake news and are condemning future generations to life on a planet altered forever by global warming”.
The leaders of Chile and Colombia went further, calling the US president a liar, and asking other countries to ignore US efforts to move away from climate action.
Despite Starmer acknowledging that global political support for the climate movement is waning, he told the gathering of those that were present: “My message is that the UK is all-in.”
President Lula hoped that $25bn could be raised for the Tropical Forests Forever Facility from public sources – mainly from developed countries like the UK – to support governments and communities protecting the world’s rainforests like the Amazon and the Congo Basin.
Prince William declared the fund “a visionary step towards valuing nature’s role in climate stability” and shortlisted it for his £1m Earthshot Prize.
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