More than 100 members of Congress question payment to Green Climate Fund

U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) signed a letter to House appropriators on Monday opposing President Barack Obama’s unilateral pledge of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund.

“Congress never authorized a dime for this,” Shimkus said. “No money for the U.N. Green Climate Fund should be included in any spending bill without such an authorization. Congress decides how taxpayer money should be spent, not the president.”

Created in 2009 as part of the non-legally binding Copenhagen Accord, the Green Climate Fund seeks to raise $100 billion a year to finance “green” energy projects in developing nations.

The Monday letter, signed by 110 members of Congress, says that they did not vote to authorize funding the Green Climate Fund and that, despite serious domestic budget constraints, President Obama acted unilaterally in pledging $3 billion in U.S. taxpayer funding to the U.N.

“Against this backdrop, we are concerned about making any commitments to support new funding through the Green Climate Fund given the U.S. government’s already significant climate change related spending to date,” the letter said. “In particular, American taxpayers have already expended tens of billions of dollars on climate change related activities through the funding of agencies across the government, including technical and financial assistance for climate change activities in the developing world through a variety of bilateral and multilateral programs.

“According to the Office of Management and Budget, federal climate change expenditures were projected to exceed $22 billion in 2013. To begin to fund yet another climate finance program with expectations that the United States will provide additional billions in funding or financial assistance in coming years would add significantly to what is already tens of billions of dollars of climate spending by American taxpayers.”