Billionaire entrepreneur Michael Bloomberg has recently announced that his foundation will step in to fund the UN climate change body after President Donald Trump declared the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement for the second time. Bloomberg’s intervention aims to ensure the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) remains fully funded despite the US halting its contributions.
Washington typically provides 22 per cent of the UNFCCC secretariat’s budget, with the body’s operating costs for 2024-2025 projected at €$88.4 million (US$96.5 million). The secretariat is tasked with supporting the global response to climate threats, and organizes international climate conferences, the next of which will be COP30 held in Brazil in November.
“From 2017 to 2020, during a period of federal inaction, cities, states, businesses, and the public rose to the challenge to uphold our nation’s commitments – and now, we are ready to do it again,” Bloomberg, who serves as the UN special envoy on climate ambition and solutions, said in a statement.
This marks the second time Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, has stepped in to fill the gap left by US federal disengagement.
In 2017, following the Trump administration’s first withdrawal from the Paris accord, Bloomberg pledged up to US$15 million to support the UNFCCC.
He also launched “America’s Pledge”, an initiative to track and report US non-federal climate commitments, ensuring the world could monitor US progress as if it were still a fully committed party to the Paris Agreement.
Wh0 is Michael Bloomberg?
Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman and politician. He is the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg L.P., and was its CEO from 1981 to 2001 and again from 2014 to 2023.
He served as the mayor of New York City for three terms from 2002 to 2013 and was a candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president of the United States. In 2024, Bloomberg received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden.
He has also served as chair of the Defense Innovation Board, an independent advisory board that provides recommendations on artificial intelligence, software, data and digital modernization to the United States Department of Defense, since June 2022.
Bloomberg grew up in Medford, Massachusetts, and graduated from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School. He began his career at the securities brokerage firm Salomon Brothers before forming his own company in 1981. That company, Bloomberg L.P., is a financial information, software and media firm that is known for its Bloomberg Terminal.
Bloomberg spent the next twenty years as its chairman and CEO. As of April 2024, Forbes ranked him as the thirteenth-richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$106.2 billion.
Bloomberg, who has signed the Giving Pledge, has given away $17.4 billion to philanthropic causes in his lifetime. After a brief stint as a full-time philanthropist, he re-assumed the position of CEO at Bloomberg L.P. by the end of 2014.
Bloomberg was elected the 108th mayor of New York City in 2001. He held office for three consecutive terms, winning re-election in 2005 and 2009. Pursuing socially liberal and fiscally moderate policies, Bloomberg developed a technocratic managerial style.
As the mayor of New York, Bloomberg established public charter schools, rebuilt urban infrastructure, and supported gun control, public health initiatives, and environmental protections. He also led a rezoning of large areas of the city, which facilitated massive and widespread new commercial and residential construction after the September 11 attacks.
Bloomberg is considered to have had far-reaching influence on the politics, business sector, and culture of New York City during his three terms as may
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Commencing teaching in his early twenties, Prof Aggarwal has diverse experience of great tenure in the top institutions not only as an educationist, administrator, editor, author but also promoting youth and its achievements through the nicest possible content framing. A revolutionary to the core, he is also keen to address the society around him for its betterment and growth on positive notes while imbibing the true team spirit the work force along with.
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