World faces climate and hunger test

US President Donald Trump has signed an "Energy Independence Executive Order" to "annul" Barack Obama-era legislation on reducing coal, oil and gas production and curbing carbon emissions. On his first visit to the Environmental Protection Agency last month, Trump signed the order, freeing the fossil fuel industry from the legislative tether and raising questions on the United States' commitment to climate change agreements, especially the 2015 Paris climate pact.

The Trump administration has not said it will pull out of the Paris agreement, but even the slightest change to, let alone a total rollback of, Obama's Clean Power Plan will make it almost impossible for the US to honor its international climate commitments. Trump's repeated questioning of humans' role in climate change, promise to slash EPA funding, and appointment of anti-climate change litigator Scott Pruitt as EPA chief and former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, had already put a big question mark on the US role in the global fight against climate change. The executive order now clears all doubts of the US under Trump not meeting its internationally agreed emission reduction target.

When the $1.1 trillion budget outline was released in March making good Trump's campaign promises, including reducing EPA by one-third, Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said those programs (environmental protection plans) are "a waste of your (taxpayers') money". On the fight against climate change, Mulvaney said: "We're not spending money on that anymore."

US funding has been cut not only for Obama's Clean Power Plan, but also will be slashed for international climate change programs and climate change research and partnership schemes.

Which means China is the only major economy that remains committed to meeting highly ambitious climate targets. Undeterred by the Trump-led US volte-face on its global climate commitments, China is on track to meet its emission reduction targets.

As if Trump's repudiation of US climate commitments was not enough, he has delivered a heavy body blow to another global cause: the fight against famine and poverty. By proposing cuts in foreign aid, Trump has threatened to end the US role as the world's top emergency donor at a time when the severest global humanitarian crisis in seven decades has been declared in three African countries, Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan.

If the US Congress approves the massive cuts proposed by Trump and Washington desists from helping with funds to combat Africa's current crisis in which about 16 million face starvation, it could have devastating effects, including tens of thousands of new migrants heading for Europe and possible support for terrorist outfits like the Islamic State group. Building a wall along the border with Mexico may help increase employment opportunities for American citizens and prevent people from some Muslim-majority countries from entering the US, which may secure the country against terrorist attacks.

Terrorism, of course, is a threat to humankind. But so is climate change. The sooner Trump and his administration understand this simple fact the better for them, the US and the world.

Contact the writer at oprana@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 04/17/2017 page2)