By Katy Daigle, Simon Jessop and Heather Timmons
NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.N. special adviser on sustainability and Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs said the Trump administration’s attacks on climate science have not impacted the commitment of other countries to reduce their emissions.
Multilateral action on sustainability issues, including climate change, is facing a tough moment.
Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly this week, U.S. President Donald Trump described climate change as the “greatest con job”. The U.N. hosts its next round of global climate talks in Brazil in November.
At a Reuters NEXT Newsmaker event in New York during Climate Week, Sachs said while Trump’s comments had “raised some eyebrows,” the rest of the world was “moving forward quickly.”
“I have not heard from one president, at least directly – (and) I speak to many heads of state – I haven’t heard from one this year that the U.S. abandonment of this issue under Trump is changing their view at all,” Sachs said.
Sachs flagged the sliding cost of renewable energy, with solar power just a fraction of a cent per watt.
That was “frankly, the opposite of what Donald Trump claimed yesterday when he said fossil fuels are great and you’re ruining your country going to renewables. It’s false even on just the most basic cost calculus,” he said.
As director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development, Sachs has been a long-time advocate of reform to institutions such as the World Bank to allow them to increase lending.
While a programme of reform is already underway, the institutions’ shareholders – largely richer nations – have so far baulked at putting in fresh cash, pushing instead for them to squeeze more out of what they have.
Sachs said however that putting in more money wasn’t a “heavy lift,” and that other countries such as China should also be given a greater role in the development bank system.
(Reporting by Katy Daigle in New York, Simon Jessop in London and Heather Timmons in Washington; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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