Trump withdraws US from world’s most important climate treaty
The actual impact of the US withdrawal on many of the UN bodies Trump has singled out will depend on how aggressively his administration follows up on its announcement.
The head of one of the U.N. bodies named in the decree said the full effect of the move would only become clear during the U.N.’s annual budget allocation process.
“If they want to be difficult, they could block the adoption of our budget. So it depends on how far they want to go,” the source added.
Although the list sparked angst among environmental groups, it did not go as far as initially expected on trade and economic issues after the administration quietly removed the World Trade Organization and OECD from its list of potential targets last year.
In October, it emerged that Trump had authorized the payment of $25 million in overdue dues to the WTO, although the administration had ridiculed the organization as “toothless” just a month before.
The list also did not include the International Maritime Organization despite the Trump administration’s successful – and diplomatically bruising – decision last year to block the IMO’s plan to introduce a net-zero framework for shipping.
Sue Biniaz, the former US climate negotiator, said she hoped the withdrawal from the UNFCCC treaty would be “temporary”, adding that there were “multiple future pathways to rejoin key climate agreements” in the future.
UNFCCC’s Stiell agrees: “The doors remain open for the United States to rejoin in the future, as it has in the past with the Paris Agreement. Meanwhile, the scale of business opportunities in clean energy, climate resilience, and advanced electrotechnology remains too great for U.S. investors and businesses to ignore.”
He added: “As all other nations move forward together, this latest step backwards in global leadership, climate cooperation and science can only harm the U.S. economy, jobs and living standards as wildfires, floods, megastorms and droughts rapidly worsen. »
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