The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) -- the leading US agency responsible for weather forecasting, climate analysis and marine conservation -- has become a target since President Donald Trump returned to power in January, with hundreds of scientists and experts already let go.
The Trump administration is also reportedly considering terminating leases for properties housing vital weather service operations, in what could upend the US ability to provide accurate weather forecasts.
The United Nations' World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Friday highlighted how essential NOAA and the United States are to a vast system put in place decades ago to monitor weather and the climate globally.
"WMO values US leadership in meteorology, climate, hydrology, oceanography and atmospheric science," WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis told reporters in Geneva.
"It provides vital weather, climate and water data and expertise which are vital to national and global well-being in our inter-connected world."
The United States on average provides up to a quarter of the flow of meteorological satellite information used in operations globally.
It also provides three percent of globally-shared land surface meteorological observations and 12 percent of so-called upper air radiosonde profiles, which are the basic ground-based observations needed for global weather prediction.
Combined with data provided by other countries, this "is the basis for accurate global weather predictions, which in turn are the basis for protecting people and livelihoods everywhere", Nullis said.
She also highlighted the critical work done by the US National Hurricane Center in Miami, which provides forecasting data that has "saved thousands and thousands of lives".
Nullis pointed for instance to the impact of Hurricane Beryl, a Category 5 storm that tore through the Caribbean before hitting the southern US states of Texas and Louisiana last year.
"The economic losses were big, but the loss of life from that was quite minimal," she said, stressing that that "was because of those advanced forecasts".
While the US contribution to global forecasting is immense, Nullis said that it too was reliant on international cooperation, which she described as "a win-win".
"The US benefits. The world benefits," she said.
"There is no way for a single country to protect its people without a global effort to manage data from local to regional to global platforms," she insisted.
"Weather, climate and water don't respect geopolitical boundaries, they don't respect electoral cycles."
South Africa, Indonesia say US withdrawing from climate finance deal
Johannesburg (AFP) Mar 6, 2025 -
The United States has pulled out of a climate funding deal struck by rich nations to help their developing counterparts transition to clean energy, the programme's first beneficiary South Africa and Indonesia said Thursday.
The so-called Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETP) are ambitious financing deals between a small group of wealthy countries and emerging economies to help them ditch planet-polluting coal.
Coal-rich but energy-starved South Africa was the first developing country to reach a deal on a JETP in 2021. Indonesia's partnership for more than $20 billion in financing to wean itself off coal was unveiled in late 2022.
But the United States has withdrawn from its multi-million-dollar deal with Pretoria under President Donald Trump's administration, a unit in South Africa's presidency said in a statement.
"The Just Energy Transition Project Management Unit in the Presidency acknowledges the decision of the United States of America to withdraw from the Just Energy Transition Partnership with South Africa," it said.
"The South African government was formally informed of this decision by the US Embassy on 28 February 2025," the statement read, adding that Washington had cited executive orders by Trump in January and February.
Indonesia's JETP Secretariat head Paul Butarbutar confirmed the US embassy in Jakarta informed him Tuesday of Washington's decision to withdraw.
"Correct... it is part of the executive order," he told AFP when asked if the Trump administration had ordered the withdrawal.
Butarbutar said the pledge of $21.6 billion from private and public donors remained unchanged, but expected the US withdrawal to impact transition studies and the issuance of grants.
"My understanding... is the US will still collaborate with Indonesia for development of renewable energy and other forms of energy, as long as it is still in line with US interests," he said.
The United States had pledged $56 million in grants to the South African initiative and an additional $1 billion in potential commercial investments.
Introduced during the UN climate talks in Scotland in 2021, the initiative's backers counted France, Germany, Britain, Canada and the European Union.
South Africa alongside Senegal, Vietnam and Indonesia were named as the first recipients of the support.
The US withdrawal leaves South Africa with $12.8 billion in pledges, Pretoria said.
Pretoria and Washington have been at odds over a range of policies, including a recent land ownership law.
Trump, whose tycoon ally Elon Musk was born in South Africa, last month froze aid to the country over the law that he alleges, without evidence, would allow land to be seized from the white minority.
The claims came in an executive order, which also noted foreign policy clashes between the United States and South Africa over the war in Gaza, particularly its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
South Africa last week said it would push on with the clean energy transition and would explore partnerships with the private sector.
"Our commitment to a just energy transition is not conditional on other sovereign powers," Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa told reporters on the sidelines of a Group of 20 leading economies meeting.
Africa's most industrialised nation is one of the largest polluters in the world and generates about 80 percent of its electricity through coal.
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