It landed as one fell swoop after a year of relentless cuts to U.S. climate programs, personnel and policy.
President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he would withdraw the United States from more than 60 international organizations and treaties, including the framework agreement for addressing climate change that a Republican administration helped to craft 33 years ago.
The moves, which face certain legal challenges and will take at least a year to execute in any case, go far beyond the nation’s exit from the Paris Agreement, which Trump announced at the start of his second term. They would mean that the U.S., the largest historic contributor to the world’s greenhouse gas overload, would be the only nation with no role in international negotiations to reduce pollution or aid poor nations that are bearing the brunt of climate impacts. The action invites a legal reckoning over Constitutional questions, such as whether a president can unilaterally abandon a treaty that has been Senate-ratified, as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was.
Trump is even seeking to remove the United States from the process of assessing climate science, although it is not clear that he has any power to block the 50 U.S. scientists from non-governmental institutions who are currently serving on the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In effect, the clearest impact of an exit from the IPCC would be giving up any leverage the United States has over the shape of the key findings of the panel, known as the Summary for Policymakers.
Climate action advocates pledged that state and local governments across the United States will remain committed to reducing greenhouse gas pollution. But the Trump administration also is engaged in a legal strategy to stop that from happening, this week filing suit against two California cities that have adopted ordinances to restrict natural gas infrastructure and appliances in new construction.
Here are some initial reactions to Trump’s move to exit the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was signed by President George H.W. Bush and ratified by the Senate on Oct. 8, 1992:
Lauren McLean, mayor of Boise, Idaho, and incoming chair of Climate Mayors
“The American people will pay the price for this shortsighted decision that turns back the clock on more than three decades of U.S. climate leadership. Families and communities across our country are already seeing the devastation of climate change. We see it in wildfires and floods wiping out forests and towns. We see it in farmers struggling with smaller yields. We see it in warmer winters followed by summer droughts. … If the withdrawal goes through, the United States will stand alone as the only country in the world that is not part of the UNFCCC. We would be walking away from our seat at the table as decision makers on how trillions of dollars can be invested in solutions that create meaningful differences in people’s lives—lowering everyday costs of groceries and bills, the security of a place to call home and affordable access to clean water and energy.”
Gina McCarthy, chair of America Is All In, former White House National Climate Advisor and 13th administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
“This is a shortsighted, embarrassing and foolish decision. As the only country in the world not a part of the UNFCCC treaty, the Trump administration is throwing away decades of U.S. climate change leadership and 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.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
“This polluter-driven stoogery shows the full extent of creepy polluters’ control over the Trump Administration. Trump’s corrupt fossil fuel interests threaten the well-being of millions around the world on the front lines of climate disaster, defy the will of the American people and damage U.S. economic competitiveness. Moreover, once the Senate has ratified a treaty, only the Senate can withdraw from the treaty; this announcement is not just corrupt, it’s illegal.”
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Donate NowRachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)
“President Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the bedrock global treaty to tackle climate change is a new low and yet another … sign that this authoritarian, anti-science administration is determined to sacrifice people’s well-being and destabilize global cooperation. But forward-looking U.S. states and the rest of the world recognize that devastating and costly climate impacts are mounting rapidly, and collective global action remains the only viable path to secure a livable future for our children and grandchildren. Withdrawal from the global climate convention will only serve to further isolate the United States and diminish its standing in the world following a spate of deplorable actions that have already sent our nation’s credibility plummeting.”
Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council
“The United States would be the first country to walk away from the UNFCCC. Every other nation is a member, in part because they recognize that even beyond the moral imperative of addressing climate change, having a seat at the table in those negotiations represents an ability to shape massive economic policy and opportunity. A future administration that understands the stakes can rejoin the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change just as Trump decided to pull the country out of it. Fortunately, the U.S. is bigger than Washington. Action from cities, states, the private sector and other nations will become even more important to help prevent the worst that climate change will throw at us and protect the world’s most vulnerable populations.”
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Marianne Lavelle
Bureau Chief, Washington, D.C.
Marianne Lavelle is the Washington, D.C. bureau chief for Inside Climate News. She has covered environment, science, law, and business in Washington, D.C. for more than two decades. She has won the Polk Award, the Investigative Editors and Reporters Award, and numerous other honors. Lavelle spent four years as online energy news editor and writer at National Geographic. She spearheaded a project on climate lobbying for the nonprofit journalism organization, the Center for Public Integrity. She also has worked at U.S. News and World Report magazine and The National Law Journal. While there, she led the award-winning 1992 investigation, “Unequal Protection,” on the disparity in environmental law enforcement against polluters in minority and white communities. Lavelle received her master’s degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and is a graduate of Villanova University.
