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Climate Change. Upon taking office, President Biden issued executive orders to “put the climate crisis at the center of U.S. foreign policy and national security” and mitigate “the devastating inequalities that intersect with gender, race, ethnicity, and economic security.”° USAID subsequently declared itself “a climate agency” and redirected its private-sector engagement strategy—teaming with America’s corporate sector to wean countries off foreign aid through private investment and trade—to support the Administration’s global policy to “transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.”

The Administration has incorporated its radical climate policy into every USAID initiative. It has joined or funded international partnerships dedicated to advancing the aims of the Paris Climate Agreement and has supported the idea of giving trillions of dollars more in aid transfers for “climate reparations.”

The Biden Administration’s extreme climate policies have worsened global food insecurity and hunger. Its anti-fossil fuel agenda has led to a sharp spike in global energy prices. Inflation has hit the poor the hardest as they expend a higher proportion of income on food purchases. Farmers in poor countries can no longer afford to buy expensive natural gas—based fertilizers that are key to achieving high yields of food production. Under advice from climate radicals, the government of Sri Lanka even banned chemical fertilizers entirely without having any replacements in place. The result has been hunger and violent political instability.

The aid industry claims that climate change causes poverty, which is false. Enduring conflict, government corruption, and bad economic policies are the main drivers of global poverty. USAID’s response to man-made food insecurity is to provide more billions of dollars in aid—a recipe that will keep scores of poor countries underdeveloped and dependent on foreign aid for years to come.

The impact on Africa is especially acute. South Africa, for example, relies on coal-powered plants to generate 80 percent of its power needs. It would need $26 billion in foreign aid to make the full transition away from coal. Multiplying this amount by dozens of other countries on the continent, the financial resources needed to transition away from fossil fuels are unachievable. In Latin America, countries that are global leaders in oil and gas production have sharply curtailed their energy production in line with climate activists, upending the hemisphere’s major source of export revenues and condemning it to years of economic and political instability.

USAID should cease its war on fossil fuels in the developing world and support the responsible management of oil and gas reserves as the quickest way to end wrenching poverty and the need for open-ended foreign aid. The next conservative Administration should rescind all climate policies from its foreign aid programs (specifically USAID’s Climate Strategy 2022-2030"); shut down the agency’s offices, programs, and directives designed to advance the Paris Climate Agreement; and narrowly limit funding to traditional climate mitigation efforts. USAID resources