Final Days: Obama Sends $500M to UN Climate Fund After Trump Vowed to Cancel Payments

"The State Department on Tuesday announced it has transferred a further $500 million to a U.N.-affiliated global climate change fund whose congressional critics have derided as a 'slush fund' and 'handout to foreign bureaucrats.'

The move comes three days before the inauguration of a president who pledged days before his election victory to 'cancel billions in global warming payments to the United Nations' and devote funds instead to 'environmental infrastructure' at home.

The $500 million is the second transfer to the Green Climate Fund, whose aim is to help developing countries reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to occurrences blamed on climate change such as rising sea-levels and drought...

Critics in Congress at the time charged that the disbursement was a waste of taxpayers' money, and pointed out that Congress had not authorized or appropriated any funding for the GCF.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who has led the criticism, on Tuesday called the latest payment 'an insult to American taxpayers.'

'The hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars the Obama administration spent on the United Nations Green Climate Fund were never approved by Congress,' he said.

'The Obama administration is now sending this slush fund another $500 million in its final days in the White House,' Barrasso added. 'This is a complete disregard for the will of the voters and an insult to American taxpayers.'..."