The US Will Stand Alone Outside the World’s Climate Treaty
On Wednesday, President Trump announced he was withdrawing the U.S. from the principal treaty for international cooperation on climate change.
The Trump administration’s all-out assault on climate and environmental policy is nothing new—it has been a defining feature of the president’s agenda since his first term. And yet, Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) still shocked the world on Wednesday.
Trump signed a sweeping executive order to effectively withdraw the U.S. from 66 international organizations that “no longer serve American interests,” according to the White House. That includes the UNFCCC, the foundational treaty and legal framework for global cooperation to combat climate change. The move will leave the U.S. as the only country in the world not part of the treaty.
The executive order also pulled the U.S. from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—the leading global scientific body studying climate change—and more than a dozen other international partnerships focused on climate, conservation, natural resources, energy, and sustainability.
“At a time when climate change impacts are accelerating—whether it’s ever-worsening fire seasons, more intense hurricanes, or prolonged droughts—choosing withdrawal over leadership is shortsighted and profoundly irresponsible,” the leaders of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC) said in an emailed statement. “Climate change does not respect borders, and we cannot address this crisis alone.”
How we got here
This move was a long time coming. Trump has consistently framed international climate agreements as constraints on U.S. sovereignty and economic growth. His withdrawal from the Paris Agreement—an integral part of the UNFCCC—in 2017 signaled broader opposition to UN climate architecture.
The U.S. rejoined the Paris Agreement in 2021 under the Biden administration, but Trump withdrew again on the first day of his second term.
Over the course of 2025, the Trump administration continued to distance itself from global climate leadership, rescinding outstanding pledges to climate funds, canceling support for international clean energy initiatives while financing major fossil fuel projects, and refusing to send a delegation to COP30 (the 2025 UN climate summit in Belém, Brazil).