As the Donald Trump administration’s 90-day freeze on U.S. foreign aid — which also affects other federal agencies beyond USAID — ripples through the development world, climate experts and NGOs are fearing the worst.
The announcement has already led to thousands of layoffs across the sector. Climate experts tell Devex that anything with “climate” in the name is likely to be impacted.
“If you’re an organization that is working on projects that are clearly focused on climate change, your project is probably in trouble,” said Ed Carr, U.S. center director of the Stockholm Environment Institute and former USAID and World Bank adviser. The Trump administration has already pulled out of the Paris Agreement, the most significant global effort to tackle climate change in history. He also issued an executive order to end clean energy-related tax breaks and instead invest in oil and gas.