Bloomberg to Give $15M for US' Share of Paris Agreement

"Americans are not walking away from the Paris climate agreement," Fortune quotes Michael Bloomberg as saying. On Friday, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced it would commit $15 million to "support the operations" of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change, which coordinates the Paris climate agreement, CNN reports. The $15 million will cover the US' share of the convention's operating budget. The executive secretary of the Framework Convention on Climate Change calls the money "crucial." On Thursday, after announcing the US was withdrawing from the Paris agreement, President Trump said the money the US had pledged to give the UN for climate matters was a "draconian" burden on the country.

Bloomberg says he believes the US can hit its 2025 emissions reduction target laid out in the Paris climate agreement without the help of the federal government. "The bulk of the decisions which drive US climate action in the aggregate are made by cities, states, businesses, and civil society," the New York Times quotes Bloomberg as saying in a letter to the UN secretary-general. Bloomberg says the federal government doesn't determine how the US as a whole acts on climate change. "We're going to do everything America would have done if it had stayed committed," the former New York City mayor with an estimated worth of $50 billion says of group that includes mayors, governors, universities, and businesses. (More Michael Bloomberg stories.)