American taxpayers forked over $2 billion to the deeply wasteful Green Climate Fund, a U.N.-linked entity based in South Korea, and could remain on the hook for more cash … unless the Trump administration and Congress act now.
The GCF funnels money into projects in various countries that are essentially foreign aid with a green coat of paint, and subject to the exact same kinds of abuses that plagued USAID before the shuttering of that infamously ineffective and wasteful agency.
What has been the CGF’s impact so far?
“Because we haven’t placed enough focus on impact — and assessing the impact and assessing results — we are not able to have that information and communicate it,” Mafalda Duarte, the executive director of the GCF, said in a recent press statement. “I think there was a general understanding in the organization that there was a need for change and for reform.” In other words, the very person in charge of the GCF admits its climate impact, if any, is unclear.
The GCF’s own Independent Evaluation Unit concluded it was a slow and ineffective organization, as its “Operational processes continue to be protracted, to the point of harming the GCF’s reputation.” A large share of the GCF’s money flows through various pass-through entities, with much of the cash vanishing into a complex network of fees, bureaucratic paperwork, and legal delays. A recent analysis by the free-market environment-focused nonprofit CFACT found that GCF’s claims to fund projects reducing greenhouse gas emissions were highly suspect and characterized the fund’s projects as simply “greenwashed” foreign aid.
President Donald Trump could use existing law to end U.S. GCF pledges, which are voluntary.
Congress could also forbid any future transfer in foreign-operations bills, which would be the most effective legal blocking mechanism. Right now, the World Bank trustee report still lists America owing another $1 billion on outstanding pledges that were suspended, instead of outright canceled. Trump could simply cancel those pledges, and Congress could forbid future monetary transfers … thus depriving future elected officials of a good excuse to throw more money at the ineffective and politically charged program.
Where are U.S. taxpayer dollars being sent by the GCF?
The fund awarded $10 million for “Empowering Women Groups to Build Resilience to Climate Impacts” in Angola. This apparently encompasses everything from nutrition to financial literacy education for rural Angolan women. Does anyone really believe that sending American tax dollars abroad to fund a development “expert” lecturing Angolan village women will meaningfully reduce global emissions, much less help American taxpayers?
The GCF also recently set its sights on paying Mongolian banks and financial institutions to offer more loans for things considered “green,” such as energy-efficient building upgrades. By encouraging banks to direct investment toward favored projects, GCF’s actions resemble much-decried Environmental, Social, and Governance initiatives pushing financial institutions to allocate capital toward causes favored by the political Left.
Other GCF projects include allegedly helping “mountain farmers in Bhutan” and improving “food security in Malawi” — the kind of nice-sounding foreign aid initiatives that often don’t actually help recipient countries and have no correlation with economic growth, all while enriching technocrats. This sort of aid has been shown to hinder the very market reforms needed to foster long-term development and actually help countries escape poverty.
Antigua, Barbuda, and other Caribbean countries received $46 million to invest in hurricane-resilient buildings … during a year without any Atlantic hurricanes. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan got $3.5 billion to turn “Glaciers to Farms.” The Green Climate Fund claims that 60% of its billions are directed toward adaptation to global warming … but even a cursory look at its programs shows a lot of ordinary foreign aid with a bit of greenwashing.
The huge “Glaciers to Farms” program is meant to improve water and food systems for tens of millions of people across Central Asia and Pakistan. If the countries donating to the GCF think they are contributing to climate change adaptation, perhaps they should think again.
The fund keeps asking the world for even more money, seeking to grow to $50 billion dollars by 2030. As of mid-2026, the GCF directly funds 358 projects to the tune of $20.4 billion committed and $7.3 billion disbursed. It co-finances another $60 billion.
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Even left-leaning nations normally sympathetic to climate change spending, like the United Kingdom, cut their GCF spending in half this year.
Trump began pulling out of the GCF when he first took office in 2017, reversing former President Barack Obama’s sending of $500 million of a $3 billion pledge to the fund. Trump rescinded outstanding U.S. pledges that had not yet been fully locked in, including a $3 billion GCF-2 pledge. Time to finish the job.
Andrew Follett conducts research analysis for a nonprofit organization in the Washington, D.C., area. He previously worked as a space and science reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.