US President Donald Trump extended his country’s retreat from global cooperation on climate action by announcing the nation would withdraw from flagship international organizations, including the main United Nations and scientific bodies focused on the issue.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC) and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are among a total of 66 groups the US will exit. The moves are seen as likely to diminish both the US role in addressing greenhouse gas emissions and the global influence of those entities.
Trump’s actions are in line with his domestic policy changes aimed at removing curbs on pollution and fossil fuels, and follow a decision in January 2025 to begin a year-long process to quit the Paris Agreement, the binding 2015 accord to combat global warming. He made a similar decision during his first term in office.
The Trump administration is quitting institutions considered “to be redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run,” and advancing agendas contrary to those of the US, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
US absent from Brazil COP
Exiting the UNFCCC would formally withdraw the US from the UN institution that rallies nations to set increasingly ambitious targets on emissions reductions, and coordinates the annual global COP summits to advance action on areas like decarbonization and climate finance. US officials were absent from the most recent talks in Brazil last year.
“It’s a gift to China and a get-out-of-jail-free card to countries and polluters who want to avoid responsibility,”said John Kerry, a former US secretary of state who also served as the country’s top climate diplomat under President Joe Biden. “It’s another self-inflicted wound on the world stage.”
By exiting the UNFCCC, any future administration would likely face a more complex task to rejoin those efforts. In 2021, Biden moved to reenter the Paris pact immediately after his inauguration.
However, a return to UNFCCC could be more challenging. Climate sceptics who encouraged Trump to quit the UNFCCC have argued that once the US withdraws from the treaty, any bid to reenter would have to be accompanied by a fresh Senate vote, which would require a two-thirds supermajority. Some legal experts have said, though, that a future president could simply re-accede to the accord without Senate approval.
In leaving the IPCC, the US “will no longer be able to help guide the scientific assessments that governments around the world rely on,” though individual scientists may still be able to contribute, said Delta Merner, associate director for the climate accountability campaign at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Reliance on US funding and expertise
The IPCC, established by the UN and World Meteorological Organization in 1998, is regarded as the crucial global authority on humankind’s contribution to planetary warming and has produced six flagship assessments that shape climate policymaking. It has traditionally relied heavily on US funding and expertise.
US involvement in the next major assessment, due in 2029, was already in question, amid mass firings and program closures at some of the country’s leading federal weather and climate agencies. Some experts were prevented from participating last year in a preparatory meeting in China.
“Walking away doesn’t make the science disappear,” Merner said in a statement. “It only leaves people across the US, policymakers, and businesses flying in the dark at the very moment when credible climate information is most urgently needed.”