Whitehouse waves climate banner at Brazil summit — no thanks to Trump, he says

BELÉM, Brazil — The State Department helped stymie U.S. officials’ ability to attend this year’s United Nations climate talks here, Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse alleged Friday.

The lawmaker from Rhode Island is the sole U.S. government presence at the COP30 summit, which has drawn an estimated 56,000 diplomats, activists, businesspeople, journalists and others to the Amazonian port city of Belém. He’s meeting with officials and other delegates to share a message that President Donald Trump and his aggressive championing of fossil fuels don’t represent the entire United States.

The U.S. government shutdown that ended this week was the main complication to the journey, but Whitehouse said it wasn’t the only barrier. He told reporters that the State Department refused to sponsor his efforts to receive United Nations credentials to attend the summit — a departure from the department’s past practice.

“There was a very deliberate pattern of behavior to try to discourage official attendance here, including making it just logistically really challenging,” said Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment but pointed to an earlier statement from a White House official saying that Trump “is directly engaging with leaders around the world on energy issues.”

Last week, while other world leaders were in Belém, U.S. officials including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright promoted American natural gas at an international energy gathering in Greece.

“The Green New Scam would have killed America if President Trump had not been elected to implement his very popular and commonsense energy agenda,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in her previous response to questions from POLITICO’s E&E News.

“President Trump will not jeopardize our country’s economic and national security to pursue vague climate goals that are killing other countries.”

Without accreditation, it would have been pointless to fly to Belém, said Whitehouse, who was finally able to obtain a badge providing access to the summit.

“We couldn’t get these,” he said, raising the badge. “You can't blame the shutdown on the State Department being unwilling to get us badged in.”

This year’s COP30 talks come as Trump doubles down on fossil fuel drilling and just months before the U.S. officially exits the 2015 Paris climate agreement for the second time. Talks here are tied up over how to ensure countries not only commit to stronger action to halt rising temperatures but also act on those pledges.

While the Trump administration declined to send anyone to the climate summit and no members of Congress have attended aside from Whitehouse, the United States’ main economic rival — China — had registered 789 delegates, according to an independent analysis of U.N. data. That’s the second biggest delegation aside from that of the host nation, Brazil, which registered 3,805.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential contender, also made a much-publicized swing through Belém this week.

The lack of an official U.S. delegation has brought a mixed reaction. Some delegates have lamented the loss of U.S. experience and ability to unlock action when talks reach a standstill. But others have expressed relief that the current administration has stayed away.

“Because of the Trump administration, I think the view is that's actually better,” Whitehouse said. “I mean, as long as we're gonna just be here and be up to no good and running around telling lies and bullying people, great, stay away, we'll make better progress without you.”

Former Vice President Al Gore, who is also attending the summit, echoed that sentiment in an interview Thursday with POLITICO.

“There are two schools of thought” about the U.S. absence, Gore said. “The first says it’s damaging that no one from the U.S. government is here. But the other school of thought is, since [Trump is] so psychopathically focused on destroying any potential solutions to the climate crisis, it’s just as well that he has stayed away and that his minions are not here either.”

Trump’s snub of the summit also snagged Whitehouse’s efforts to attend as a member of the coequal legislative branch, the senator’s team said.

Congressional representatives typically receive official badges for attendance at the annual climate conferences as part of a country delegation. The State Department said it would not provide those badges because the Trump administration was not sending an official delegation, according to Whitehouse’s team.

Sens. John Curtis (R-Utah) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) had been slated to lead a bipartisan delegation to COP30 but canceled at the last minute due to the shutdown. Coons’ office said people there were under the impression that the State Department would not sponsor congressional delegations during the government shutdown.

In the long run, Whitehouse said, he hopes that the U.S. can return to the global stage as a cooperative partner and undo any damage that has been done in its absence. He said the U.S. could suffer lasting repercussions to its reputation if it walks away from negotiations and champions fossil fuels despite having the best science and resources to counter climate change — especially as the harms from worsening climate-induced wildfires, heat waves, storms and hurricanes grow.

“The quicker we can get back to being the good guys again, the better,” Whitehouse said.

But, in the short term at least, that would involve Democrats winning more elections, Whitehouse noted at a separate event at the TED Countdown House outside the COP30 venue. He said Democrats had been too timid on climate issues when in control of Congress and the White House, often settling for “half-measures.”

“It helps if you want to win elections in order to achieve political power to have shown that when you do have political power, you use it energetically and smartly and are willing to be bold,” he said. “Unfortunately, on climate, that has not been us.”

Amelia Davidson contributed to this report from Washington.