More than two dozen Republican senators told Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday that giving money to the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund would be illegal since the “State of Palestine” is included.
The letter from 28 senators said that the Palestinian state became a member of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change on March 17, triggering a 1994 law signed by President Bill Clinton prohibiting sending taxpayer funds to any U.N.-affiliated group that includes a member not recognized as a state by the U.S.
“The inability of the U.S. government to block the Palestinians from being admitted for membership as a state by the [U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change] and other UN affiliated organizations is extremely troublesome,” the letter states.
“We urge the administration to clarify, both publicly and privately, that the United States does not consider the ‘State of Palestine’ to be a sovereign state, and to work diligently to prevent the Palestinians from being recognized as a sovereign state for purposes of joining UN-affiliated organizations, treaties, conventions and agreements.”
The Green Climate Fund is one of the provisions in the Paris climate change accord, signed by the U.S. and 195 other countries in December. It would serve as a means to distribute money from rich countries to poorer countries to help them improve their infrastructure against climate change.
The letter says the Green Climate Fund isn’t the only international agreement threatened by the Palestinian admission to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The 1994 law would prevent any taxpayer money from going to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat, the Conference of the Parties and the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.
In effect, that would prevent the U.S. government from putting any taxpayer money toward U.N. meetings on climate change policy.
The senators said the Palestinians are attempting to achieve statehood through the United Nations and its affiliated groups, rather than by negotiating with Israel. It asked the administration to admonish the Palestinians for actions they see as undermining the Israel-Palestinian peace process.
“The accession of the Palestinians to the [U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change] and its efforts to secure full membership in other UN-affiliated organizations undermine those negotiations and make achieving a comprehensive peace agreement more difficult,” the letter says.
