U.N. climate talks get underway in Brazil on Monday, with delegations from almost every country set to convene on the outskirts of the Amazon rainforest to discuss how to tackle the climate crisis.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump will be one notable absentee, however. The White House has confirmed it does intend to send any high-level representatives to the summit, marking an unprecedented absence of U.S. officials at the conference.
Roughly 50,000 delegates are expected to attend the 30th edition of the U.N. climate conference, known as COP30, with talks set to run through to Nov. 21.
Anna Aberg, research fellow at the Environment and Society Centre at Chatham House, a London-based think tank, said it was likely a positive for the international community that the Trump administration won’t send any officials to Belem.
“It’s, of course, really unfortunate that the Trump administration has withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris Agreement for a second time … and that they are pursuing this very forceful anti-climate agenda both in the U.S., and increasingly also overseas,” Aberg told CNBC by telephone.
