The Trump administration's decision this week to pull the United States out of key climate bodies is an act of "profound cowardice" designed to escape accountability for the country's greenhouse gas emissions, says leading French climatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of the US from 66 international organisations – roughly half of them linked to the UN.
Masson-Delmotte, former chair of Working Group 1 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and now a climatologist at France's Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, accuses the White House of "sabotage" aimed at destroying scientific knowledge and keeping it from the American people.
RFI: How do you interpret this latest US attack on global climate diplomacy?
Valérie Masson-Delmotte: Under the Trump administration, the United States is breaking away from multilateralism on climate and biodiversity. It's also breaking away from objective, rigorous and factual scientific assessment work.
This is reflected in the withdrawal from the IPCC, the biodiversity panel IPBES, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The move forms part of a policy of brutal attacks against climate science, environmental science and biodiversity science in the US, but also against the place of scientific facts at all levels within the American federal framework and internationally.
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RFI: For Donald Trump, these organisations no longer serve American interests. Yet the United States, like other countries in the world, is affected by climate change.
VM-D: Yes, of course. The National Academies of Sciences, Medicine and Engineering have updated their assessment of the state of knowledge on the links between greenhouse gas emissions and harmful impacts on the health and wellbeing of Americans. The state of knowledge on this point is only becoming more refined, showing just how much climate change is a threat to Americans.
And what we can clearly see is that the Trump administration is pursuing a policy of obstructing all environmental regulation, going as far as destroying scientific facts and the production of scientific knowledge.
It's also an attack on academic freedom, which is one of the legacies of the Enlightenment and a key aspect of democratic life.
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RFI: Is the United States shooting itself in the foot?
VM-D: I'd call it sabotage. Sabotage aimed at making scientific knowledge inaccessible. At destroying the capacity to produce knowledge by targeting climate research centres, adaptation centres and water research centres.
In fact, the American administration is trying to present itself as powerful and brutal, but it's above all profound cowardice because ultimately, the policies being implemented are designed to avoid any accountability.
The US is the world's largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases and the second-largest emitter today, with highly polluting oil and gas multinationals. I think the goal is simply to escape all responsibility and accountability.
This is an administration whose compass seems to be guided only by fossil fuel interests and nothing else.
This interview was adapted from the original version in French by RFI's Igor Strauss.
