Democrats Storm COP31 to Prove Trump Doesn't Speak for America on Climate

Democrats are at COP31 in Turkey with a blunt message: the White House may have skipped the party, but America didn't. Former secretary of state John Kerry, speaking at the 2026 gathering, said, per CleanTechnica: “Americans are committed to taking back their future, and we will build and rebuild our partnerships as we do that.” Former vice-president Al Gore is part of the same unofficial US delegation.

Twenty Democratic members of Congress made the trip — and got denied official State Department funding for it, according to CleanTechnica. President Donald Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, refused to attend. The last COP, held in Brazil in 2025, also had no official US presence; instead, a coalition of 100 local US leaders including governors and mayors showed up under the US Climate Alliance banner.

The midterms on November 3 delivered Democrats the Senate and the House, handing them a mandate they're now flexing abroad. Back home, that means hearings, investigations into the administration's dismantling of climate programmes, and Congress's spending power to protect or restore environmental funding. Fresh legislation on emissions standards and clean energy is on the table too. The catch: Trump's veto pen, and Democrats are short of the two-thirds majority needed to override it.

Trump's rollbacks are the backdrop. In February 2026 his administration rescinded the EPA's 2009 finding that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare — the legal foundation for regulating vehicle emissions under the Clean Air Act. He also weakened greenhouse gas reporting rules and methane regulation, pulled the US out of the Paris agreement and backed fossil fuels over clean energy projects.

Voters were paying attention to more than energy. Some 56% said data centres and AI were a major or crucial factor in their vote, while only 13% said it wasn't a factor at all, according to CleanTechnica. Those data centres need millions of gallons of water for cooling, a figure expected to hit 73 billion litres a year by 2028 — and over half of planned AI facilities in the US sit in areas already facing water shortages or drought.

Zoe Lofgren is likely to chair the House science, space and technology committee when the new session starts in January, and she's targeting the administration's “climate denialism.” Money matters too: US climate finance ran at $1.5 billion a year in 2021 under Biden and hit $9.5 billion in 2023. One odd footnote — Trump's war with Iran cut global fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions by 0.4% via the Strait of Hormuz closure, though scientists say that's no long-term fix. Natasha Lindstaedt of the University of Essex wrote the analysis.