Trump expands US climate retreat with exits from UN bodies

President Donald Trump extended the US retreat from global cooperation on climate action by signaling a withdrawal from flagship international organizations, including the main United Nations and scientific bodies focused on the issue.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are among a total of 66 groups the US will exit, spanning multiple sectors. The climate moves are seen as likely to diminish the US role in addressing greenhouse gas emissions, and significantly limit the global influence of those entities.

Trump’s actions are in line with his domestic policy changes aimed at removing curbs on pollution and fossil fuels, and follow a decision in January 2025 to begin a year-long process to quit the Paris Agreement, the binding 2015 accord to combat global warming. He made a similar decision during his first term in office.

The move is a “gift to China and a get out of jail free card to countries and polluters who want to avoid responsibility,” said John Kerry, a former US secretary of state and special presidential envoy for climate during the Biden administration. “It’s another self-inflicted wound on the world stage.”

A spokesperson for the UNFCCC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s second term has delivered an acceleration of efforts to roll back action to tackle climate change, which he has labeled a “hoax” and “the greatest con job.” Funding programs or tax incentives from his predecessor Joe Biden’s era covering areas like clean energy and electric vehicles have been scrapped, renewables projects halted, research grants frozen or canceled, and public access to some climate-related data limited.

The administration is quitting bodies considered “to be redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run,” and advancing agendas contrary to those of the US, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

Exiting the UNFCCC would formally withdraw the US from the UN institution that rallies nations to set increasingly ambitious targets on emissions reductions, and coordinates the annual global COP summits to advance action on areas like decarbonization and climate finance. US officials were absent from the most recent talks in Brazil last year.

The decision by the world’s largest economy and second-largest emitter to walk away “is regrettable and unfortunate,” said Wopke Hoekstra, the European Union’s climate commissioner, in a comment posted on social media. “We will unequivocally continue to support international climate research, as the foundation of our understanding and work.”

The US withdrawal poses “the most serious challenge to international climate efforts since the adoption of the Paris Agreement,” said Li Shuo, the director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “For China, the move means one less competitor in the clean technology race.”

“The US stands alone in its stance on climate,” said Germany’s environment minister, Carsten Schneider. Other countries “have committed to doing everything possible to limit global warming to 1.5C this century.”

By quitting the UNFCCC, any future administration would likely face a more complex task to rejoin global climate efforts. In 2021, Biden moved to reenter the Paris pact immediately after his inauguration.

Conservatives who encouraged Trump to leave the convention have argued that once the US withdraws, any bid to reenter the UNFCCC would have to be accompanied by a fresh Senate vote, which would require a two-thirds supermajority. However, some legal experts have said a future president could simply re-accede to the accord without Senate approval.

“There are multiple future pathways to rejoining the key climate agreements,” said Sue Biniaz, former US climate negotiator under Biden. “I agree with treaty scholars who consider that the US could rather seamlessly rejoin the UNFCCC based on the Senate’s approval in 1992.”

Advocates of the exits insisted the US will be freed from policies that seek to eliminate fossil fuels and which they argue are raising energy costs. “His action is a clear signal that our country won’t be part of global efforts to tell people how to live their lives and how to produce and use energy,” said Daren Bakst, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment.

The IPCC, established by the UN and World Meteorological Organization in 1998, is regarded as the crucial global authority on humankind’s contribution to planetary warming and has produced six flagship assessments that shape climate policymaking. It has traditionally relied heavily on US funding or expertise.

In leaving the IPCC, the US “will no longer be able to help guide the scientific assessments that governments around the world rely on,” though individual scientists may still be able to contribute, said Delta Merner, associate director for the climate accountability campaign at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

US involvement in the next major assessment, due in 2029, was already in question, amid mass firings and program closures at some of the country’s leading federal weather and climate agencies. Some experts were prevented from participating last year in a preparatory meeting in China.

The move to “retreat from the effort to reduce pollution and climate disasters will hurt the American people and businesses,” said Amanda Leland, executive director of the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit. “It will turn over leadership to other countries, and the US will get no say in these critical decisions.”

The implications “are substantial,” said Benjamin Horton, dean of the school of energy and environment at City University of Hong Kong. “The US has traditionally contributed expertise, leadership in assessment chapters, and critical Earth‑system monitoring data. I am unsure how the IPCC can continue without the US.”

BLOOMBERG