US Skips UN Ocean Conference After Rejecting Development Goals
Participants attend a panel discussion during the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice, France, on June 9.
Photographer: Christian Hartmann/AFP/Getty Images
The US is only sending observers to a UN conference on protecting the oceans that began Monday in France, part of the Trump administration’s broader retreat from multilateral institutions and the fight against climate change.
The administration objects to the conference’s focus on a UN goal centered around the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans and marine resources, the State Department said in a statement. President Donald Trump’s team has rejected the idea behind the Sustainable Development Goals, a list of aspirations established in 2015.