The second US exit from the Paris Agreement was not unexpected. Even before his re-election, current President Donald Trump had done so Promised for several months It will withdraw the country from the United Nations Charter to limit global warming: Paris climate”Rogue“, as he called it.
However, black Trump drinkers voted Scratching across the signature line From an executive order – “Putting America first in international environmental agreements— seemed to reverberate around the world this week, as climate experts, diplomats and concerned ordinary people watched the world’s climate change. The largest historical emitter of Greenhouse gases He turned his back on the agreement.
The 2015 Paris Agreement is a treaty signed by 196 countries agreeing to limit global warming to “well below 2 degrees Celsius” (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and, ideally, a temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Almost every year since then, countries have met annually to discuss the specifics of the agreement and, at least in theory, reach more consensus on how to tackle climate change. This annual conference, known as the Conference of the Parties or COP, is the main place where US withdrawal will be felt.
Some of the direct impacts will be financial. Withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, which would take one year from the day Trump notified the UN of his intention to do so, means the United States will no longer contribute to financing flows aimed at helping poor countries transition away from fossil fuels and prepare for the impacts. From climate change. Trump’s executive order said he “nullified and abolished” the United States International Climate Finance Planwhich established a government-wide strategy to reduce public investments in international fossil fuel projects while increasing investments in clean energy and financing adaptation abroad.
In 2024, the US Congress appropriated 1 billion dollars To mitigate the effects of climate change in the developing world, the country has contributed to this Less than other nations Most responsible for climate change, e.g Germany and Japan. Although the Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific project run by three think tanks, has rated U.S. contributions to climate finance as “grossly inadequate,” some experts have raised concerns that cutting off funding entirely could… It will have a big impact. Chilling effect On contributions from other donor countries.
However, US non-participation in the Paris Agreement is unlikely to significantly change the pace of climate progress. This is due to several ways in which the treaty is structured. First, the 2015 agreement never committed the United States to any specific amount of emissions reductions; It only required the United States to make a “nationally determined contribution” every five years. The United States did so willingly – but not in accordance with the goals set by the agreement’s signatories. Until former President Joe Biden’s last full month in office — when he pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions 61 to 66 percent by 2035 – The targets presented by the United States were considered by the Climate Action Tracker Incompatible With the Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
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The same applies to every other State party to the Convention. Not one It has set an emissions reduction target consistent with the Paris Agreement, and the United Nations Environment Program estimated last October that collective pledges to reduce emissions by countries would allow… 2.6 to 3.1 degrees Celsius (4.7 to 5.6 degrees F) of warming by the end of the century. A May 2024 survey Among the 380 members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the world’s premier scientific authority on the subject — they found that 77 percent believe humanity is headed toward 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) or more of warming by 2100.
“Before this administration arrived, the trajectory of global emissions was already far off the trajectory that science showed was necessary,” said Rachel Cletus, policy director at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists.
Second, countries are in no way obliged to adhere to the inadequate emissions reduction targets they provide under the Paris Agreement. They are binding only to the extent that they are binding under domestic law – and the United States has never passed any legislation binding it to the goals of the Paris Agreement. As of December, U.S. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 — a goal that several analyzes claimed “within reachThanks to investments enabled by Biden’s two signature climate bills, the bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021, and the Reducing Inflation Act of 2022. But as of 2022, U.S. policies will only cut greenhouse gas emissions by 42%; The gap must be filled with additional action by states, cities and private companies.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration too Increased oil and gas extraction to record levelsalthough frequent Warnings From the International Energy Agency – an independent intergovernmental organization – that no new fossil fuel infrastructure is compatible with a path to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The US exit from the Paris Agreement “may be mostly symbolic,” said Sheila Olmstead, a professor of public policy at Cornell University. What ultimately matters, she said, is what the Trump administration does domestically: for example, with vehicle emissions standards, greenhouse gas limits for power plants, and clean energy subsidies under the inflation-reducing law, which made… $137 billion Available for renewable energy infrastructure and climate change resilience.
Olmstead said it remains to be seen what Trump will be able to accomplish in terms of reversing those policies, even though he has already done so. Signed a series of executive orders To roll back vehicle emissions standards, pause climate spending under the CIA, and expand oil and gas drilling on federal lands. State and local resistance could at least partially thwart the president’s plans to do so — for example, the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of 24 governors whose states account for more than half the country’s economy, I pledged to honor The latest Nationally Determined Contributions made by the United States during the final days of the Biden administration.
However, December Rhodium group analysisan independent research firm, found a deregulatory agenda — the kind Trump is pursuing I started at age – Could lead to a 24 to 36 percent increase in climate pollution in 2035, compared to current policies.
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Evans Njoya said in a report that the US exit “threatens to undo hard-won gains in reducing emissions and exposes our vulnerable countries to greater risk.” statement. Najwa is the head of the group of least developed countries in the UN climate negotiations – a 45-nation bloc that includes Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Niger that calls for ambitious policies at annual climate talks.
For the most part, experts are not concerned that the Trump administration will spur a mass exodus from the Paris Agreement. The U.S. exit from the Paris Agreement will be “less significant” than it was during Trump’s first term, because other countries have more time to prepare, said Kaveh Jelanpour, vice president of international strategies at the nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
“I don’t think it is in the interest of the United States to leave the Paris Agreement,” he said, but the world “will not be surprised this time — it knows what is coming.”
But there is no precedent for a climate conference where the United States is merely an observer. The last time Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement was in 2017. United Nations rules It made things go slowly — neither signatory could leave the agreement until “three years from the date on which this agreement enters into force.” By the time the United States officially exited, in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic had emerged The talks were postponed until the following year – After Biden’s inauguration.
This time, there will be no three-year buffer period, and it will only take one year for the United States to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Trump may choose not to honor that shortened timeline — his executive order says the country “will consider its withdrawal from the agreement and any accompanying obligations effective immediately after such notification is provided” — but he would still technically be permitted to send notification. A delegation to participate in it Round of negotiations this yearScheduled to be held in November in Brazil. When the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31), the name given to the annual climate conference, comes in 2026, the United States will be officially demoted to observer status — it will still be able to attend, but without decision-making authority and no obligation to make climate commitments. New and report on your progress towards achieving this. they.
Without the United States in the Paris Agreement, it is possible that other countries will take their climate commitments more seriously — especially those they currently lead Far-right climate deniers. However, according to Olmstead, that was not the case the last time the United States announced it would withdraw. “There was a catalytic nature to it,” she said, prompting Europe and China to reaffirm their commitments to cutting emissions.
Meanwhile, some experts say the structure of the Paris Agreement is the root cause of the broader failure to halt rising global emissions. The voluntary nature of the Charter is often referred to as One of her great strengths The reason why it has support from almost every country on earth. But this flexibility clearly turns into a problem when signatories – especially major polluters like the United States – choose not to do their fair share.
Olmstead said there are essentially two worldviews when it comes to tackling the climate crisis: “the mother of all collective action problems,” she said. What the Paris Agreement demands is that we value justice and cooperation to achieve common goals. By contrast, the law enacted by the Trump administration is more isolationist, with “each country acting only in its own interest,” and expresses skepticism about the ability of any international institution to be better than the sum of its parts.
“It is unfortunate that this worldview is now being applied to climate change, because it does not seem to be consistent with addressing it,” Olmstead said.
