Here’s how world leaders are reacting to the decision.
Donald Trump wasted no time getting right to work on his first day back in office. After his swearing-in, the president signed a flurry of executive orders that revoked more than 70 polices instituted by Joe Biden, withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization, delayed the ban on TikTok, declared that America will recognize only two sexes, and pardoned about 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection — to name only a few.
Trump also opted to pull out of the Paris Agreement, a significant international treaty that aims to take global action on climate change. With so many sweeping actions taking place at once, we won’t fault you if you’re having trouble keeping up with the implications of these decisions. Below, take a deeper dive into what the Paris Agreement stands for, and what it means that the United States is no longer on board.
First things first: What is the Paris Agreement?
Adopted by 196 countries at COP21 in 2015, the agreement seeks to limit the worrisome rise of the average temperature around the globe by pulling back on greenhouse gas emissions. Crucial to its execution is the idea that every country involved will continue pushing itself to be cleaner and greener in support of this collective goal.
“Implementation of the Paris Agreement requires economic and social transformation, based on the best available science,” the U.N. explains. “The Paris Agreement works on a five-year cycle of increasingly ambitious climate action … carried out by countries. Since 2020, countries have been submitting their national climate action plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Each successive NDC is meant to reflect an increasingly higher degree of ambition compared to the previous version.”
READ ON: This outline from the United Nations explains the agreement’s goals, the steps for implementation, and a look at how progress is being tracked.
What’s the history of America’s involvement with the Paris Agreement?
The U.S. formally entered the agreement in September 2016 under President Barack Obama.
“There are no shortage of cynics who thought the agreement would not happen,” Obama said at the time. “But they missed two big things: The investments that we made to allow for incredible innovation in clean energy, and the strong, principled diplomacy over the course of years that we were able to see pay off in the Paris Agreement. The United States and China were central to that effort. Over the past few years, our joint leadership on climate has been one of the most significant drivers of global action.”
In June 2017, however, Trump officially withdrew from the accord during his first administration. He said the agreement had been “negotiated badly” by Obama, that it would undermine American competitiveness around the globe, and that the overall results of the strategies behind the agreement would be “negligible” by 2100.
Then, when Biden took office in January 2021, he put the U.S. back into the agreement. And just before he left office, Biden set an “ambitious” climate goal to cut American greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60% by 2035, a plan that was formally submitted to the U.N. as part of the country’s alignment with the Paris Agreement.
Why is Donald Trump withdrawing from the Paris Agreement again?
Trump’s decision has been largely framed as a rejection of a collective agreement in which, according to his assessment, the U.S. contributes more than its fair share while other countries reap the benefits.
“In recent years, the United States has purported to join international agreements and initiatives that do not reflect our country’s values or our contributions to the pursuit of economic and environmental objectives,” Trump’s executive order says. “Moreover, these agreements steer American taxpayer dollars to countries that do not require, or merit, financial assistance in the interests of the American people.”
The president specifically pointed the finger at China as he spoke about this decision on Inauguration Day “I’m immediately withdrawing from the unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord rip-off. The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity.”
The withdrawal is expected to take about a year to formalize, and once it’s done, the U.S. will be one of only four countries not participating in the Paris Agreement. The other three are Libya, Iran, and Yemen.
READ MORE: See the complete text of Trump’s executive order from the White House’s official website. (Don’t worry: It’s only 800 words.)
Could Trump’s second withdrawal from the Paris Agreement be more impactful than the first?
Even before Trump had officially won a second term, U.N. officials were warning about the implications of him removing America from the accord once again. Days before the 2024 presidential election, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said the agreement would be “crippled” if the U.S. backed off for a second time.
Commentators worry about the domino effect that could result from a superpower like America leaving the agreement. That’s especially top of mind given an apparent global trend toward rethinking climate-friendly political action. This latest withdrawal also comes at a time when the world faces big-picture crises — like the conflict between Israel and Hamas and the war between Russia and Ukraine — that could detract from the attention on global warming.
READ ON: This rundown from Axios outlines all the reasons some politicos say the effects of Trump’s second withdrawal could be more dramatic than the first time around.
How is the world reacting to the U.S. withdrawing from the Paris Agreement?
To put it simply: Not well.
European Union Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra called it “a truly unfortunate development.” Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva said Trump’s decision “confirm[s] the most pessimistic predictions about the challenging times to come.” A spokesperson from the Chinese Foreign Ministry said China is “concerned” about America’s withdrawal, given that climate change is “a common challenge facing all of humanity.”
Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary for Climate Change at the U.N., also pointed out that there’s a lot the U.S. stands to lose by pulling out of this accord: “Embracing [the global clean energy boom] will mean massive profits, millions of manufacturing jobs and clean air. Ignoring it only sends all that vast wealth to competitor economies, while climate disasters like droughts, wildfires and superstorms keep getting worse, destroying property and businesses, hitting nationwide food production, and driving economy-wide price inflation.”
Stateside, New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham have already announced that their states plan to continue pursuing the goals outlined in the Paris Agreement, even if the federal government is not. “We write as co-chairs of the United States Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of two dozen governors representing nearly 60 percent of the U.S. economy and 55 percent of the U.S. population, to make it clear to you, and the rest of the world, that we will continue America’s work to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and slash climate pollution,” the governors wrote in a joint statement. “We will not turn our back on America’s commitments. For our health and our future, we will press forward.”
READ ON: See more reactions from world leaders and important voices on climate in this roundup from Reuters.
