Adedokun Waliyu 
As promised in yesterday’s newsletter, today’s focus is about the fallout from U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans to withdraw from multiple climate-related United Nations treaties.
Last year, the Trump administration withdrew from the Paris Agreement. This time, he listed 35 non-U.N. groups and 31 U.N. entities in a memo, opens new tab to senior administration officials.
One of the most important environmental accords the U.S. is pulling out of is the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, described by many as the “bedrock” climate treaty which is parent agreement to the 2015 Paris climate deal.
The U.S. also withdrew from the key UN scientific body on climate change called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. U.S. scientists played a key role in the IPCC’s assessments.
Trump argues that those institutions “operate contrary to U.S. national interests” of focusing on oil, gas and mining development.
But some legal experts say that this decision may be illegal, adding that Congress would need to approve its exit as it was a decision by the U.S. Senate which unanimously adopted that climate treaty more than 30 years ago.
The U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell said the move was a “colossal own goal which will leave the U.S. less secure and less prosperous,” adding that the U.S. leaving these treaties at such a time is harmful to its economy and living standards “as wildfires, floods, mega-storms and droughts get rapidly worse.”
The Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), a decades-old Pacific organization for environmental protection, called for the U.S. to go through a formal process to withdraw its support of the international treaties.
The move also drew criticism from European officials as well as environmental groups
The chance a La Nina will transition to ENSO-neutral conditions, according to the Climate Prediction Center, a U.S. weather forecaster.
It’s been a pretty rough start to the year, so here’s a video on polar bears playing in snow, opens new tab for the first time in their lives in Hungary’s Nyiregyhaza animal park for you to enjoy wherever you are based. May it bring you as much joy as it did for me.
This week, the United States has made headlines in its aim to safeguard critical resources such as rare earths in Greenland and oil in Venezuela. In keeping with that theme, today’s Climate Lens focuses on the Democratic Republic of Congo’s minerals.
The African nation has suspended artisanal copper and cobalt mineral processing, according to a decree seen by Reuters. The move is an effort to improve transparency and prevent illegal exports, a pervasive problem in the mineral-rich nation.
