Trump shuts spigot for Green Climate Fund, but Senate panel keeps other funding alive

During the 2016 presidential campaign, President Donald Trump said he would be "canceling billions in climate change spending for the United Nations."

When Trump announced that the United States would pull out of the Paris climate agreement in a speech at the White House on June 1, 2017, he added that he would also stop United States funding of United Nations global warming programs.

In one significant way, Trump has achieved his goal. Under President Barack Obama, the United States had sent the first $1 billion of a $3 billion pledge to the Green Climate Fund, which finances clean-energy and climate-adaptation efforts in nations countries facing challenges from climate change.

Under Trump, additional payments to the fund have not been forthcoming. Trump said in his White House speech that as needs at home go unmet, money from this fund "will be sent to the very countries and factories that have taken our jobs."

However, it's worth noting that Trump lost a round in an effort to cut another type of United Nations climate change funding.

On Sept. 7, 2017, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved an amendment that would restore full U.S. funding for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Despite pulling out of the Paris agreement, the U.S. belongs to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate. Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a United Nations committee that studies climate science. The amendment would continue funding for both entities.

Despite facing headwinds from most Republicans on the committee, Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee joined all committee Democrats except for West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin to support the amendment, which was sponsored by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. The amendment passed 16-14.

The amendment added $10 million to the 2018 State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill earmarked for the two United Nations affiliates, "bringing funding levels in line with recent U.S. support for those institutions," Merkley said in a statement after the vote.

The appropriations bill has not advanced through the full Senate yet, and once it does, it would still need to be reconciled with the equivalent House bill and signed by the president. So it's possible that the final bill will strip the climate change funding inserted by Merkley's amendment.

For now, Trump has chalked up one victory by shutting down U.S. funding for the Global Climate Fund, but he's also suffered a defeat -- at least for now -- in the effort to strip funding for two United Nations climate change entities. We rate this promise a Compromise.