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Under the Trump administration, the US – the world’s second-largest carbon polluter – will become the first country to withdraw from the UN climate convention, a key bedrock for international climate diplomacy, in a move that will cut it off from global decision-making on climate change.
On January 7, the White House issued a presidential memorandum announcing that the US will quit 31 UN bodies, among them the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It will also leave 35 other international organisations – many of them environmental – including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the most authoritative global voice on climate science.
While the Trump administration already gave notice nearly a year ago that the US would quit the Paris Agreement, under which countries agreed to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, it did not at that time attempt to leave the UNFCCC. The climate convention, adopted in 1992, is the bedrock of the world’s efforts to curb climate change and tackle its impacts.
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The US has already ceased all funding to the UNFCCC, and would be the only nation to formally exit the convention. After officially notifying the UN of its decision, the withdrawal will take effect after a period of one year.
The country has also decided to exit key organisations for nature conservation, including the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which publishes a “red list” of endangered species, and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the scientific advisory body to the UN biodiversity convention.
In addition, the US will leave the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the International Solar Alliance (ISA), both of which promote the use of renewable energy.
In a statement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “we will stop subsidizing globalist bureaucrats who act against our interests”, adding that US membership of other international organisations remains under review.
“The Trump Administration has found these institutions to be redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity,” Rubio said.
Rejoining possible
The US Senate ratified the UNFCCC in 1992, which experts said raises questions about the legality of Trump’s move to exit through an executive order.
But legal scholars have indicated that the Senate would not need to ratify the UN climate convention again if the country wishes to rejoin.
In a blog, Jake Schmidt, senior strategic director for international climate at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) wrote that, based on the Senate’s original “advice and consent”, the US could once again become a party to the UNFCCC 90 days after such a decision were formalised.
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Sue Biniaz, the US State Department’s former principal deputy special envoy for climate until January 2025, said she hoped the federal retreat would be “a temporary one”.
“There are multiple future pathways to rejoining the key climate agreements,” she added, saying she agreed with treaty scholars who consider the US “could rather seamlessly rejoin” the UNFCCC based on the Senate’s 1992 approval.
Forfeiting influence
Experts criticised the move, saying it would isolate the US from global policy-making on climate change and disadvantage Americans in adapting to its worsening effects. But many expressed optimism that the rest of the world would continue to push forward with efforts to curb planet-warming emissions.
The NRDC’s Schmidt noted, however, that the US absence would “complicate the climate negotiations, as a major economy pulling in the wrong direction always makes forging global progress more difficult”.
Former US climate envoy John Kerry said Trump’s decision is “a gift to China and a get-out-of-jail-free card to countries and polluters who want to avoid responsibility”. He added that “the price is always paid by kids, in lost health, squandered jobs, rising costs, uninsurable infrastructure, and worse consequences.”
Gina McCarthy, a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator and the first White House National Climate Advisor under Joe Biden, said the move to quit the UNFCCC is “a shortsighted, embarrassing, and foolish decision”, as the country will forfeit influence over “trillions of dollars in investments, policies, and decisions that would have advanced our economy and protected us from costly disasters wreaking havoc on our country”.
McCarthy, who now chairs “America Is All In”, a coalition of US cities, states and businesses and institutions working on climate action, said her organisation is committed to collaborating with international partners “to lower energy costs, cut pollution, and deliver on the goals of the Paris Agreement”.
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David Widawsky, director of the World Resources Institute US, described the US withdrawal from the UN climate convention as a “strategic blunder that gives away American advantage for nothing in return”. But, he added, global climate diplomacy “will not falter” since other countries “understand the UNFCCC’s irreplaceable role” in advancing climate solutions and driving cooperation.
On the decision to quit the IPCC, Delta Merner, associate accountability campaign director for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said President Trump is “deliberately cutting our nation’s formal participation off from the world’s most trusted source of climate science”.
While individual US scientists can still contribute, the country will “no longer be able to help guide the scientific assessments that governments around the world rely on”, she added in a statement.
