Trump begins U.S. exit from UN climate convention, experts warn

President Donald Trump on Wednesday began the process to withdraw the United States from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a step treaty experts said leaves the U.S. increasingly isolated from global climate cooperation.

The withdrawal process, the Associated Press reported, starts steps to pull the U.S. out of the UNFCCC, described as the main forum where nations negotiate, monitor and enforce agreements meant to curb climate change. Experts also said Wednesday’s move goes further than Trump’s earlier steps tied to the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said the change is “more fundamental and more damaging” than earlier U.S. efforts. He said, “It is a more serious step definitely. The world loses a lot and it is very damaging,” adding that “The U.S. turns its back against science, against global collaboration, against any kind of action on climate change.”

Jean Galbraith, a University of Pennsylvania law professor who is identified as an expert on international treaties, said the UNFCCC withdrawal targets “the gateway to the preeminent international forum for combatting climate change.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, announcing the U.S. withdrawal, said the Trump administration “has found these institutions to be redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity.”

The UNFCCC framework was negotiated in Brazil in 1992 and championed by Republican President George H.W. Bush, the AP said. The U.S. Senate ratified it unanimously, and the framework later enabled Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden to sign and reactivate the Paris deal without needing Senate approval, the report said.

The AP also said Wednesday’s actions were not limited to the UNFCCC. It reported that the Trump administration withdrew from a UN climate science panel, a biodiversity-saving effort and the Green Climate Fund, which is aimed at supporting poorer nations, among other collaborations.

The change drew concern at a time experts say the world is near major temperature and climate-risk thresholds. The AP reported that Earth is approaching 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times, which it described as the threshold established under the Paris accord. Adelle Thomas, climate adaptation director of the Natural Resources Defense Council and also identified as a vice chair of the UN climate science panel that Trump is quitting, said the withdrawal “will mean more warming” because “the U.S. is not going to be fulfilling its obligations of reducing their emissions.”

Rockstrom said global emissions need to begin falling “by 5% per year,” describing it as “our last chance.” He said the step-out occurs at the same time: “exactly at that moment, the biggest player in the world steps out of the game.”

Former Ireland President Mary Robinson, an advocate for The Elders group of retired leaders, said the world is “perilously close” to “tipping points’ of irreversible change,” including “coral reef loss,” and argued that “We really have no time and it is so unbelievably stupid at one level and reckless for the Trump administration to be taking the steps that they are taking.”

The AP said past U.S. approaches in climate negotiations often involved preventing oil-producing countries from weakening deal language, especially when Democrat John Kerry served as secretary of state or top climate envoy. Kerry called Trump’s action “a gift to China and a get-out-of-jail free card to countries and polluters who want to avoid responsibility.”

In contrast, Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, said removing the U.S. from the UN climate framework “will accelerate a positive shift towards abandoning the destructive global climate framework.” Other experts cited by the AP, including Thomas, Rockstrom and Christiana Figueres, said the U.S. is leaving itself behind in what they portray as a cleaner energy transition with more jobs.

The U.N. climate treaty’s own executive secretary also warned about domestic effects. Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the UNFCCC, said the move will mean less affordable energy, food, transport and insurance for American households and businesses, arguing that “as renewables keep getting cheaper than fossil fuels” and climate-driven disasters intensify, crops, businesses and infrastructure will face increasing damage.

Some environmental advocates, the AP said, have worried future presidents may find it harder to restore U.S. participation in an era when Senate approval would likely be more difficult. Sue Biniaz, identified as a former State Department lawyer and deputy chief negotiator who now teaches at Yale, said she did not expect the impact to be irreversible. She said, “I wouldn’t want to say any sort of damaging action or inaction is irreversible,” and added that “I imagine a future U.S. government would work with other countries to revive as much as possible,” noting the U.S. “did that in 2021 after the first Trump administration.’’”