"We're not spending money on climate change any more," said Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director. "We consider that to be a waste of your money to go out and do that."
Climate change is driving up sea levels around this coastal habitation on the island of Lombok - but with funding from the US government through USAID, the World Neighbors NGO has helped residents of the village to plant 11,000 mangroves that have limited the worst impacts of tidal flooding. The new trees not only help control the waters but they have also boosted supplies of shellfish and crabs, which are important sources of income when floods hit other crops. Tourism is also beginning to develop in the area. It's not just about reducing climate change or poverty, it contributes to political stability as it enhances the livelihoods of the people in these villages. If the village is destroyed by the sea all of these goals are null and void.
Dr Kate Schecter, World Neighbors CEO, explained, "I am very concerned about this type of xenophobic hunkering in and denying what's happening around the world. It will be disastrous on many levels."
Dr Andrew Light, a former senior climate change adviser at the US State Department, now working at the World Resources Institute, says the cuts may have severe long-term impacts for the US position in the world. "The US might have ideological blinkers on now but the rest of the planet doesn't."
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