ICYMI: Trump Pulls Out of Global Climate Treaty

Washington, DC — Yesterday, The New York Times reported that President Trump announced he’s withdrawing the United States from more than 60 international groups and agreements, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC is a U.S. Senate-ratified treaty signed in 1992 that provided the legal basis for the Paris Agreement and has been upheld by both Democratic and Republican administrations for more than 30 years. The withdrawal isolates the United States as the only country outside of this agreement, and could significantly complicate efforts by future administrations to rejoin multilateral climate agreements. 

The announcement represents one of the most aggressive steps in the Trump administration’s war on climate policy, which includes erasing scientific data from government websites, commissioning misleading reports to cast doubt about climate change, and decimating the booming clean energy economy in the United States, even as the country experiences costly extreme weather, soaring insurance costs, skyrocketing energy prices, and rising pollution.

The New York Times: Trump Pulls Out of Global Climate Treaty

President Trump announced on Wednesday that he was withdrawing the United States from the bedrock international agreement that forms the basis for countries to rein in climate change. The treaty, which has been in place for 34 years, counts all of the other nations of the world as members.

The action could make it more difficult for a future administration to rejoin the Paris climate accord, the agreement among most nations to fight climate change.

In a social media post, the White House announced that Mr. Trump signed a presidential memorandum that pulled the United States from the climate pact and 65 other international organizations and treaties that “no longer serve American interests.” About half of those are United Nations organizations.

The decision is not only an indicator of America’s rejection from global diplomacy, it’s a finger in the eye to the billions of people, including Americans, suffering through intensifying wildfires, storms and droughts, threats to the food supply and to biodiversity, and other dangerous and costly effects of a warming planet.

“It sends a major signal around the world of U.S. disdain for climate policy that’s essential for the world,” said Jean Galbraith, a professor specializing in international law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

Mr. Trump has already taken steps to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement. That will become official on Jan. 20.

“This is a shortsighted, embarrassing, and foolish decision,” said Gina McCarthy, the White House climate adviser during the Biden administration. She said the Trump administration was discarding decades of global collaboration. “This administration is forfeiting our country’s ability to influence 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,” she said.

President Trump’s retreat on climate cooperation comes as the United States’ main rival on the world stage, China, has come to dominate the clean energy technologies of the future. At the same time, many of the United States’ most powerful allies, including Australia, Britain and the European Union, are also advancing their ambitions to reduce emissions of planet-heating greenhouse gases and ramp up renewable energies.