In April 2016, the United States became a signatory to the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation, and accepted it by executive order in September 2016. President Barack Obama committed the United States to contributing US$3 billion to the Green Climate Fund.Green Climate Fund , Status of Pledges. On June 1, 2017, U.S. president Donald Trump announced that the United States would cease all participation in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation, contending that the agreement would "undermine" the U.S. economy, and put the U.S. "at a permanent disadvantage".
In accordance with Article 28 of the Paris Agreement, a country cannot give notice of withdrawal from the agreement within the first three years of its start date in the relevant country, which was on November 4, 2016, in the case of the United States. The White House later clarified that the U.S. would abide by the four-year exit process. On November 4, 2019, the administration gave a formal notice of intention to withdraw, which takes 12 months to take effect. The withdrawal took effect on November 4, 2020, one day after the 2020 U.S. presidential election. However, the U.S. still has to report its greenhouse gas inventory because it remains in the UNFCCC.
The decision to withdraw the U.S. was backed by many RepublicansTom McCarthy & Lauren Gambino, The Republicans who urged Trump to pull out of Paris deal are big oil darlings , The Guardian (June 1, 2017).Andrew Prokop, Don't just blame Trump for quitting the Paris deal — blame the Republican Party , Vox (June 1, 2017).Lisa Friedman, Staking Out Battle Lines, House Votes to Keep U.S. in Paris Climate Pact , The New York Times (May 2, 2019).Scott Clement & Brady Dennis, Post-ABC poll: Nearly 6 in 10 oppose Trump scrapping Paris agreement , The Washington Post (June 5, 2017). but was strongly opposed by Democrats.Where Democrats Stand: Should we rejoin the Paris Agreement? , The Washington Post (2020).Michael Edison Hayden, Democrats, environmentalists blast idea US could leave the Paris accord , ABC News (May 31, 2017). However, it was strongly criticized in the U.S. and abroad by environmentalists,Jeff Tollefson, It's official: Trump begins process to exit Paris climate agreement , Nature (November 4, 2019). religious organizations,25 Religious Organizations Express Disappointment on Paris Agreement Withdrawal (June 5, 2017). business leaders, and scientists.Jeff Tollefson& Quirin Schiermeier, How scientists reacted to the US leaving the Paris climate agreement , Nature (June 2, 2017). According to polls released in 2019, a majority of Americans opposed the withdrawal. Following Trump's announcement, the governors of several U.S. states formed the U.S. Climate Alliance to continue to advance the objectives of the Paris Agreement at the state level despite the federal withdrawal. As of July 1, 2019, 24 states, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico have joined the alliance, and similar commitments have also been expressed by other state governors, mayors, and businesses. The withdrawal from the Paris Agreement impacted other countries by reducing its financial aid to the Green Climate fund. The termination of the $3 billion U.S. funding ultimately impacted climate change research and decreased society's chance of reaching the Paris Agreement goals, as well as omitted U.S. contributions to the future IPCC reports. It also affected the carbon emission space as well as the carbon price. The U.S.'s withdrawal also meant that the spot to take over the global climate regime was obtainable for China and the EU.
Following the 2020 presidential election, President-elect Joe Biden vowed to rejoin the Paris Agreement on his first day in office. On January 20, 2021, shortly after his inauguration, President Biden signed an executive order to rejoin the agreement. The United States formally rejoined the Paris Agreement on February 19, 2021, 107 days after the withdrawal took effect. On January 20, 2025, shortly after his second inauguration, President Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the agreement for a second time.
Background and ratification
The Paris Agreement was an addition to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), initially agreed to by all 195 countries present at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in December of that year, including the United States then under the presidency of Barack Obama. Due to the status of the United States and China as the greatest emitters of carbon dioxide, Obama's support and his cooperation with China were seen as major factors leading to the convention's early success.
The main aim of the Agreement is to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels", predominantly by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Agreement differs from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the last widely adopted amendment to the UNFCCC, in that no annexes are established to lessen responsibility of developing nations. Rather, emissions targets for each nation were separately negotiated and are to be voluntarily enforced, leading United States officials to regard the Paris Agreement as an executive agreement rather than a legally binding treaty. This removed the requirement for the United States Congress to ratify the agreement.
In April 2016, the United States became a signatory to the Paris Agreement, and accepted it by executive order in September 2016. President Obama committed the United States to contributing US$3 billion to the Green Climate Fund. The Fund has set itself a goal of raising $100 billion a year by 2020.
First withdrawal Article 28 of the agreement enables parties to withdraw from the agreement after sending a withdrawal notification to the depositary, but notice can be given no earlier than three years after the agreement goes into force for the country. Withdrawal is effective one year after the depositary is notified. Alternatively, the Agreement stipulates that withdrawal from the UNFCCC, under which the Paris Agreement was adopted, would also withdraw the state from the Paris Agreement. The conditions for withdrawal from the UNFCCC are the same as for the Paris Agreement.
On November 8, 2016, four days after the Paris Agreement entered into force in the United States, Donald Trump of the Republican Party was elected President of the United States. Many conservative Republicans dispute the level of human involvement in climate change. Trump rejects the scientific consensus on climate change and tweeted in 2012 that he believed the concept of global warming was created by China in order to impair American competitiveness. During Trump's 2016 election campaign, Trump promised to revitalize the coal industry, which he claimed has been hampered by environmental regulations. It has been argued that this contributed to the support he enjoyed from crucial swing states. His opposition to climate change mitigation was unchanged in the first months of his presidency, in which he issued an executive order to reverse Obama's Clean Power Plan and other environmental regulations.
In April 2017, a group of 20 members of the European Parliament from the right-wing Alternative for Germany, UK Independence Party, and other parties sent a letter to Trump on urging him to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. On May 25, 2017, 22 Republican Senators, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, sent a two-page letter to Trump urging him to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. The letter was drafted by Senator John Barrasso, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Senator Jim Inhofe, known for his longtime climate change denial.Tom McCarthy & Lauren Gambino, The Republicans who urged Trump to pull out of Paris deal are big oil darlings , The Guardian (June 1, 2017). Most of signatories to the letter were elected from states reliant on the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas); the group of 22 senators had collectively received more than $10 million in campaign contributions from fossil-fuels companies in the previous three election cycles. Earlier the same week, a group of 40 Democratic Senators sent Trump a letter urging him to keep America in the Paris Agreement, writing that "a withdrawal would hurt America's credibility and influence on the world stage."
Both support for the move and opposition to it were reported among Trump's cabinet and advisers: Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, economic advisor Gary Cohn, and advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly wanted the United States to remain committed to the agreement, while White House Advisor Steve Bannon, White House Counsel Don McGahn, and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt wanted the United States to abandon it.
During the G7 summit in late May 2017, Trump was the only G7 member not to reconfirm commitment to the Paris Agreement. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of the other leaders present, was publicly unimpressed with Trump's refusal to cooperate on climate change mitigation, which was seen to damage Germany–United States relations. The communique issued at the conclusion of the summit stated that the United States "is not in a position to join the consensus" of the other G7 countries on policies regarding climate change and the Paris Agreement.
Announcement
In a televised announcement from the White House Rose Garden on June 1, 2017, Trump said, "In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect the United States and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord," adding "The bottom line is that the Paris accord is very unfair at the highest level to the United States." He claimed that the agreement, if implemented, would cost the United States $3 trillion in lost GDP and 6.5 million jobs. He added that it would "undermine our economy, hamstring our workers," and "effectively decapitate our coal industry". He said he was open to renegotiating the arrangement or negotiating a new one, but European and UN leaders said the pact "cannot be renegotiated at the request of a single party". Trump also criticized the Green Climate Fund, calling it a scheme to redistribute wealth from rich to poor countries.
The White House said that Trump would end the implementation of carbon reduction targets set by former President Barack Obama and that the withdrawal would be done in accordance with the years-long exit process spelled out in the accord. On September 16, 2017, a European official said the Trump administration had appeared to soften its stance on withdrawing the agreement. The White House told the press that it had not changed its position on the agreement.
Examinations of Trump's speech by The Washington Post and The New York Times pointed to numerous fallacies, including, but not limited to, claims that the U.S., under the Paris Agreement, was forbidden to build coal power plants; that a difference of 0.2 degrees Celsius is insignificant in climatology; that U.S. contributions to the Green Climate Fund were paid out of the U.S. defense budget; projections that the U.S. is on course to become the "cleanest" nation on earth; and Trump's reiterated claim of personal support for environmental causes.
Process