Dive Brief:
- The United States has condemned the sustainable development goals set by the United Nations and its global framework to achieve these goals — which include ending poverty, attaining gender equality and taking urgent climate action — by the end of the decade.
- In a speech before the UN’s General Assembly last week, a Trump administration representative said the U.S. “rejects and denounces” the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 SDGs. As such, the nation will “no longer reaffirm them as a matter of course.”
- The same day, the U.S. announced it had withdrawn from the board of a UN-backed climate damage fund designed to provide financial assistance to nations most vulnerable to climate change. A March 4 letter penned to the fund’s co-chair Jean-Christophe Donnellier stated both the U.S. board member and alternate board member will step down “effective immediately” and not be replaced by another U.S. representative.
Dive Insight:
The nation’s new stance on the SDGs surfaced during remarks made by Edward Heartney, a minister-counselor at the U.S. mission to the UN, on a resolution to create an “International Day of Peaceful Coexistence.” This resolution also included a reaffirmation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Heartney said the 2030 agenda and SDGs “advance a program of soft global governance that is inconsistent with U.S. sovereignty and adverse to the rights and interests of Americans.” He added that “globalist endeavors like Agenda 2030 and the SDGs lost at the ballot box” in the U.S. November election.
Heartney also said Trump had “set a clear and overdue course correction on ‘gender’ and climate ideology, which pervade the SDGs.”
Despite initially stating a commitment to support “efforts to sustain peace and pursue diplomatic solutions to crises in the world,” the U.S. voted against the resolution and was one of only three countries — including Israel and Argentina — to do so. The General Assembly adopted the resolution by a vote of 162 nations in favor to three against.
The U.S. continued to pursue an adversarial stance on the SDGs and also voted “no” on an “Education for Democracy” resolution, citing similar concerns over the goals and the UN’s agenda to achieve them.
“Citizens of all member states should be concerned that this text cites the SDGs as a reason to educate about the SDGs, in pursuit of the SDGs,” Heartney said in separate remarks. “This circularity has gone too far.”
Heartney’s criticism of the resolution also pointed out that its text lacked “precise language regarding the biological reality that there are two sexes: male and female.” Hartney’s comments mirrored the gender ideology blueprint laid out in Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order, which proclaims the U.S. government will only recognize two sexes, male and female. A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction on this order, which also bans or threatens providers of gender-affirming care to people under 19.
The General Assembly also adopted the education resolution in a 151-1 vote, with only the U.S. in opposition.
The U.S. also announced the same day that it was exiting the board for the Loss and Damage Fund, which was established during COP27 in 2022. The creation of the fund was the culmination of years of pressure from developing nations most vulnerable to climate change and, notably, the highlight of the UN’s climate change summit that year. The fund aims to help financially compensate for losses and damages from natural disasters spurred by climate change.
The March 4 letter penned by Rebecca Lawlor, a climate finance negotiator at the Treasury Department and a former board member on the Loss and Damage fund, did not explicitly state whether the U.S. was withdrawing from the fund altogether. The vacating of board seats, however, is in line with recent moves made by the Trump administration that signal a reversal on the nation’s climate policies.
Last month, the U.S. departed a climate coalition that pledged billions of dollars to help certain developing countries transition from coal to clean energy sources. Prior to this, Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office that withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement for a second time.
