In late 2021, Typhoon Rai, locally known as Supertyphoon Odette, rocked the Caraga and Southern Leyte regions of the Philippines. The Category 5 storm brought torrential rain, landslides, and storm surges that killed more than 400 people and temporarily displaced hundreds of thousands. It was just one of many “once in a century” calamities that are now routine around our world due to climate change.
I recently visited Dinagat Island in the Caraga region to speak with local residents about the impacts of climate change and environmental destruction. One person after another shared harrowing stories of Odette and its profound and continuing impact on their lives, including reductions in rice and other staple crops and the destruction of schools, boat docks, and homes.
USAID and other humanitarian organizations provide life-saving emergency aid after tragedies like Odette, and then provide assistance to rebuild. Driving through villages in Dinagat Island, it was striking to see that poverty runs so deep that the USAID-branded tarps provided after Odette are still being used as temporary roofs on many homes.
Yet, while I was on Dinagat Island, in Washington the billionaires Donald Trump and Elon Musk decided to dismantle USAID, in the name of “government efficiency,” without regard to facts, science, or humanity.
Dinagat Island is a particularly poor part of the Philippines. Efforts to recover have been heavily dependent on foreign aid, such as the $20.2 million in aid granted through USAID to provide food, water, and shelter to those impacted by the typhoon. For comparison, Trump’s six-month security costs to local law enforcement agencies in Palm Beach, Florida, home to his Mar-a-Lago country club, were recently billed at $20 million – just for overtime pay.
The Philippines, a nation of more than 114 million people, which is responsible for only 0.48 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, flooding and drought, and sea level rise. Experts have found that the Philippines is more than twice as likely to experience deadly typhoons due to the impacts of climate change, making storms like Odette a portent of future disasters in a warming planet.
The Trump administration is taking steps that seem aimed at making the climate crisis worse, including withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, ramping up oil and gas production, promoting fossil fuel-based plastics, and pausing a national electric vehicle infrastructure program.
Cutting USAID funds will have long-term impacts on the ability of the world’s most vulnerable to prepare for and recover from increasing numbers of extreme weather events, as well as what are known as “slow onset” consequences like droughts and sea level rise. In 2023, USAID granted over $600 million to climate-related efforts, including renewable energy projects and climate adaptation efforts. Many of these critical projects around the world are now at a standstill. Development aid, including USAID funding, is equivalent to just 0.33 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, well below the UN target for wealthy countries of 0.70 percent.
As climate change impacts worsen, countries – including particularly climate vulnerable countries like the Philippines – will be forced to bear the costs of climate disasters resulting from the emissions of the U.S. and other major emitters. The U.S. is responsible for roughly a quarter of historic greenhouse gas emissions, and it is now the second largest emitter behind China. This is why financial support to address climate change should not be seen as charity. Instead, it is partial compensation for the harms we have caused.
Secretary of State Mario Rubio, who is also now the acting director of USAID and previously a proponent of U.S. soft power, should reinstate critical USAID programs, including those responding to extreme weather events caused by climate change. Congress should insist, including by resorting to the courts if necessary, that the Trump administration spend the funds it has appropriated under its constitutional budgetary powers.
In the absence of U.S. global leadership, the European Union, Japan, Australia, and other developed countries should step up and ensure that the funding gap left by the U.S. doesn’t result in avoidable harms to people living in climate vulnerable countries.
The moves to eliminate USAID and other global funding on climate change by Trump and Musk should be seen for what they are – a callous move by billionaires that will doom the world’s poorest to not even having a tarp to keep the rain out of their typhoon damaged homes.