President Trump withdraws US from UN climate treaty and 65 international bodies
President Donald Trump has withdrawn the US from 66 international organisations, many of which focus on combatting climate change.
In an executive order signed on 7 January, Trump triggered the process of withdrawing the US from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, the International Renewable Energy Agency and several other climate-related bodies.
The order also withdraws the US from organisations related to development, gender equality, conflict, health, the arts, and other areas.
The move aligns with a review of the conventions, treaties and organisations the US is party to or provides funding for, to determine which are “wasteful, ineffective and harmful” and “contrary to the interests of the United States”.
The review, which is ongoing, was ordered by Trump in February last year and is being directed by secretary of state Marco Rubio.
Based on the review’s initial findings, Trump has directed “all executive departments and agencies to take immediate steps to effectuate the withdrawal of the United States from the organisations listed […] in this memorandum as soon as possible”.
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Trump administration finds international institutions ‘threat to our nation’s sovereignty’
In a strongly-worded press statement that has drawn criticism from organisations seeking to fight climate change, promote peacebuilding and protect vulnerable communities, Rubio said the Trump administration had found the 66 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”.
He added: “President Trump is clear: it is no longer acceptable to be sending these institutions the blood, sweat, and treasure of the American people, with little to nothing to show for it. The days of billions of dollars in taxpayer money flowing to foreign interests at the expense of our people are over.”
‘Colossal own goal’: UN climate chief
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the principal global treaty for coordinating international responses to climate change. The withdrawal of the US from the UNFCCC follows Trump’s decision to pull the country out of the Paris Agreement for a second time last year. His administration also declined to send a delegation to COP30 in Brazil last November.
Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, released a statement following Trump’s executive order, saying that the US’s retreat from climate cooperation would damage its economy.
“The United States was instrumental in creating the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, because they are both entirely in its national interests,” he said.
“While all other nations are stepping forward together, this latest step back from global leadership, climate cooperation and science can only harm the US economy, jobs and living standards, as wildfires, floods, mega-storms and droughts get rapidly worse. It is a colossal own goal which will leave the US less secure and less prosperous.”
He said that coal and oil volatility and related conflict and instability, climate-driven disasters, and the rejection of renewables would mean “less affordable energy, food, transport and insurance” for American households and businesses, and fewer manufacturing jobs.
“UN Climate Change will keep working tirelessly to help all peoples around the world share in the vast benefits of climate cooperation under the Convention and the Paris Agreement, as the global transition keeps gathering pace and scale,” Stiell said.
“The doors remain open for the US to re-enter in the future,” he added.
Questions have been raised over whether the US’s exit from the UNFCCC is legal, with some experts of the belief that Congress would need to approve it.
“Because the US entered the UNFCCC with advice and consent of the Senate in 1992, it’s our legal view that it also must be exited using the same process in reciprocation,” Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity told Reuters. “Letting this lawless move stand could shut the US out of climate diplomacy forever.”
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International reaction
The EU and climate scientists are among those to have publicly denounced the US’s decision.
EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra called the US retreat from the UNFCCC “regrettable and unfortunate”, while the EU’s clean transition vice-president Teresa Ribera said the administration showed little concern for the environment, health or human suffering, according to the BBC.
Rob Jackson, Stanford University climate scientist and chair of the Global Carbon Project – which tracks global emissions – said the withdrawal “gives other nations the excuse to delay their own actions and commitments” on reducing greenhouse gases.
Agreements on two major international climate treaties – on green shipping and plastics pollution – failed last year after opposition and pressure from the US and others.
Read more: Three reasons why China wants global green leadership after COP30 – and two reasons it doesn’t
About Mia Hunt
Mia has been editor of globalgovernmentforum.com since 2019. She has 15 years’ experience as a journalist and editor and specialises in writing for civil and public servants worldwide, including covering sustainability policy and related issues. She has led the Global Government Women’s Network since it launched in 2023. Previously, she covered commercial property having been market reports and supplements editor at Property Week and deputy editor at Retail Destination. She graduated from Kingston University London with a first-class honours degree in journalism and was part of the team that produced The River newspaper, which won Publication of the Year at the Guardian Student Media Awards in 2010.
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