For the second time since the Paris Agreement on climate change was adopted, the US this week formally withdrew from the global pact following a 12-month mandatory period since President Donald Trump announced he would pull his country out on his first day in office in January 2025.
Since then, the US has axed most of its international climate funding and this month said it would exit the UN climate convention (UNFCCC) – which underpins the UN climate process and the Paris Agreement – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is the world’s most authoritative climate science body, and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the world’s biggest multilateral climate fund.
Trump to pull US out of UN climate convention and climate science body
As the Trump administration turns its back on the UN climate regime, UN climate chief Simon Stiell described the move as a “colossal own goal”, while the GCF – to which the US has failed to deliver billions of dollars in promised support – said the country would lose its board seat but operations would continue.
Climate diplomacy experts say some of the changes announced by the US president could remain symbolic or be reversed in the future, while warning that the reputation of the world’s second-biggest emitting country could suffer a big hit in the long term.
Other countries may follow US Paris exit
Marta Schaaf, Amnesty International’s climate programme director, said the US’s second exit from the Paris Agreement on January 27 (the first was during Trump’s first term) “sets a disturbing precedent” that could instigate a “race to the bottom”, encouraging other countries to leave.
“The US is one of several powerful anti-climate actors but as an influential superpower, this decision, along with acts of coercion and bullying of other countries and powerful actors to double down on fossil fuels, causes particular harm and threatens to reverse more than a decade of global climate progress under the agreement,” she said in a statement.
So far no other signatories have publicly announced they will quit the 2015 climate agreement, but Israeli media recently reported that the country is discussing a withdrawal under pressure from the US. Last year, Argentina also hinted at a possible exit but did not follow through.
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COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago said himself that in the months leading up to last year’s UN climate conference in Brazil, there was “a lot of noise about possible additional exits”, after the world’s largest economy said it would withdraw.
The Trump administration has been called out in other UN processes, after being accused of employing “bullying” tactics at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to persuade smaller countries to vote against the entry into force of a green shipping deal. This pressure resulted in a delayed decision.
Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International’s US campaign manager, said the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement “is a betrayal of the communities at risk from climate disaster, especially those on the frontlines of the crisis in the Global South”.
Legal uncertainties around UNFCCC withdrawal
This January, in an unprecedented move, the White House also announced the US would leave the broader UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This would take effect one year after formally notifying the UN, which it had yet to do as of the time of publication.
The UNFCCC could be harder to rejoin than the Paris Agreement – which was last done through an executive order issued by former President Joe Biden – because the US Senate first gave unamimous “advice and consent” for ratification of the UNFCCC in 1992, making the legal situation more complex.
Some experts believe the US would need Senate authorisation to formally withdraw from the UNFCCC, and there are questions around whether the move would be legal at all.
Trump’s presidential memorandum says that “for United Nations entities, withdrawal means ceasing participation in or funding to those entities to the extent permitted by law”. To all intents and purposes, the US had already disengaged from the UN climate process during Trump’s first year in office, cutting funding for the UN’s climate body and not sending a delegation to COP30.
However, if the US does not formally notify the UN of its withdrawal from the UNFCCC, that could potentially ease legal concerns for the Trump administration, according to Michael Gerrard, climate change law professor at Columbia Law School.
Could the US rejoin the UNFCCC?
Gerrard told Climate Home News that if the Trump administration does not officially withdraw from the UNFCCC, “then I don’t see a legal obstacle to a subsequent administration resuming funding and participation”. “Even if the US does formally withdraw now, a new president might well be able to rely on the prior consent in rejoining; that issue has never been decided by the Supreme Court,” he added.
Sue Biniaz, the US State Department’s Principal Deputy Special Envoy for Climate until January 2025, and Jean Galbraith, professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, wrote on the Just Security blog that the mainstream legal view is that the president may constitutionally withdraw the US from a Senate-approved treaty where – as here – the withdrawal is lawful under international law and neither the Senate’s resolution of “advice and consent” nor a congressional law has put limits on withdrawal.
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Under international law, they added, rejoining is straightforward. For the UNFCCC, a state can become a party 90 days after depositing its instrument of ratification or accession, and following that, the US could rejoin the Paris Agreement, which would take 30 days after the deposit of its instrument.
From the perspective of domestic law, the two climate law experts argued that the original Senate resolution remains in effect (unless repealed by the Senate) and provides the legal authority needed for a future president to rejoin the UNFCCC. He or she could also seek a second round of “advice and consent”, ask Congress to approve rejoining, or potentially join the UNFCCC under the president’s independent constitutional powers, they added.
Loss of US leadership and credibility
Irrespective of whether the White House does move to rejoin the UN climate regime at any point, analysts said the Trump administration’s hostile attitude and disengagement has damaged the standing of the US when it comes to global climate action and the energy transition.
Biniaz and Galbraith wrote that the world is used to the US “flip-flopping on climate”, because it refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and quit the Paris Agreement once before, but “withdrawal from the entire regime takes US abdication of climate leadership to a new level”.
Though many countries may be relieved that the Trump administration is not participating given its current policies, they said: “in the longer term, US absence could have a negative impact on the effectiveness of the regime and the willingness of other countries to take ambitious action.”
Nikki Reisch, climate and energy director at the Center for International Environmental Law, warned that “it will not be easy for the US to regain credibility or leadership on climate.”
While an “informal withdrawal” from the UNFCCC may “avoid some paperwork” and avoid potential lawsuits, she said it would not “insulate this administration from scrutiny and legal challenge on other grounds, particularly as it continues to unwind climate progress, dismantle environmental protections, and expand production of the fossil fuels”.
Reisch noted that US states and local governments have been making efforts to “fill the void where the federal government has abdicated its duties”. “Other countries, too, should see the Trump administration’s retreat as an invitation to step up, stand together and move forward,” she added.
The post Explainer: Out of Paris, but will the US formally quit the UN climate regime? appeared first on Climate Home News.
Explainer: Out of Paris, but will the US formally quit the UN climate regime?
Scientists have vowed to keep working on the next flagship set of reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), after a political row over the timeline for their release saw its latest session suspended on Friday evening without agreement.
During the weekend, government officials and scientists alike expressed disappointment over the inability to reach a compromise before some delegates from developing countries and small island states had to leave the week-long meeting in Ethiopia to catch flights home.
The disagreement – which has persisted since early 2024 – turns on whether the three key parts of the AR7 assessment should all be published before the conclusion of the UN’s next Global Stocktake of global climate action, which is due to be completed in late 2028.
The IPCC issued a statement after the close of the session, saying that “key agenda items” – the timelines for the three AR7 reports, as well as the IPCC budget – remain open and under discussion. It said the IPCC’s plenary session and its deliberations on the pending agenda “will resume at the earliest opportunity”, giving no further details of when.
IPCC Chair Jim Skea told delegates in closing remarks that recent months had been some of the most turbulent for the climate science panel and that, if there were stronger words than “profound disappointment” he would use them, according to a summary published by the Earth Negotiators Bulletin (ENB). IPCC discussions happen behind closed doors.
IPCC scientists remained committed
In an open letter, issued on Monday, a group of nearly 120 scientists – from a total of 664 AR7 authors – said they “stand committed to continue working to deliver the AR7 reports in a manner that is rigorous, timely and inclusive, in line with our mandate to be policy-relevant”.
“An assessment that arrives after the decisions it is meant to inform cannot serve its purpose,” they emphasised. “The second Global Stocktake in 2028 is such a decision point, and the world should not have to face it without the IPCCʼs latest assessment.”
Europe, small islands and the least developed countries, plus many Latin American and developed nations, want the IPCC to meet this deadline, arguing that the findings from the UN climate science body are irreplaceable in the UN climate policy-making process.
However, around a dozen developing countries plus Russia have argued that the reports should come later in order to allow for greater research input from the Global South – something that, in their view, would make the findings fairer. They also claim that a shorter timeline would put excessive pressure on experts.
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The most vocal of this group at last week’s meeting were India and Saudi Arabia, according to the ENB summary and a developed country diplomat. Critics see this push for a longer timeline as an excuse to deprive government decision-makers of the latest science and ease pressure on emerging economies to raise their ambition, particularly on cutting emissions.
Commenting on last week’s meeting, France’s ambassador for climate negotiations Benoît Faraco said a broad coalition of developed and developing countries from all five continents, “united in their support for science and the timeline proposed by scientists”, had withstood pressure “from a few countries” seeking to slow down the process of adopting the IPCC reports.
He added that France would not back down and would “continue to fight tirelessly for science, protect the integrity of information, and convince our partners that without the best available scientific data, we will be less effective in tackling climate change and protecting our populations”.
Inclusivity proposal stalled
In a bid to unlock a solution for the AR7 timeline, countries discussed ways to improve the inclusivity of the IPCC’s work. One option put on the table was for the IPCC to expand its funding for delegates from developing countries to attend some or all of its sessions from one to two participants, according to the ENB summary and a delegate speaking to Climate Home News.
That would increase the costs for the IPCC to complete AR7 by up to a quarter, according to an assessment shared by the secretariat. The panel’s budget is under severe strain and its officials have warned that, without additional voluntary contributions, it risks running out of money before it can deliver on this assessment cycle.
Climate Home News understands that some of the IPCC’s traditional donors – which mainly include European countries, Japan and Australia – indicated a willingness to support funding for an additional developing country participant. But without an agreement over the budget or the timeline for the reports, that option was ultimately not adopted.
‘Disappointed and worried’
The three reports are managed by working groups that collate and draw overall findings from the latest scientific studies and data on the physical effects of global warming around the world, how to adapt to it, and pathways for cutting planet-heating emissions in order to meet the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement.
Winston Chow, an urban climate professor at Singapore Management University who co-chairs Working Group II on adaptation, wrote in a LinkedIn post that he was “disappointed and worried” for the IPCC authors who have worked “extraordinarily hard” to assess the relevant climate science over the past two years.
He said he shared their concern that “the rigour, time and goodwill they’ve invested are now being put at risk by the Panel’s stalemate”.
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For Working Group II, a meeting for 250 experts writing that report is scheduled for January 2027, followed by the approval of a special report on cities and climate change in Singapore next March.
But because the IPCC’s budget has not been confirmed due to uncertainty about the AR7 schedule, travel support for those researchers is at risk, wrote Chow. “If they cannot participate, our assessments will lose vital expertise, perspectives and scientific breadth, and the collective effort of our authors will be undermined,” he warned.
Scientific work continues
Despite the political holdups, he – together with French climate scientist Robert Vautard, co-chair of Working Group 1 – agreed with IPCC head Skea who told the IPCC’s closing session on Friday: “The engine room of the IPCC is working, and it’s healthy.”
Vautard commented in a separate post on LinkedIn after it ended: “The boat is at full steam.” Working groups I and II are due to start revising the first drafts of their reports, while Working Group III on reducing emissions is finalising its first draft which will be out soon, he wrote.
“The most exciting two years of the cycle are ahead, for the authors. The momentum in the engine room is here and now. Trust the engine room!” he added.
The IPCC and some scientists report that progress has been made towards achieving an equitable balance of authors from the Global North and the Global South.
The group of researchers who signed the open letter on Monday noted that “inclusivity is at the heart of how we work”, with author teams bringing together experts from developed and developing countries with diverse backgrounds and at different stages of their careers.
Plea to overcome political differences
The signatories include several scientists from some of the countries opposed to the alignment of all IPCC reports with the Global Stocktake.
“We are committed to an assessment in which the knowledge, experience and priorities of every region are fully reflected, a commitment we share with the leadership of the IPCC.
Equity is built into how our assessment is being drafted,” they added.
They appealed to governments that make up the IPCC “to overcome their political differences and work together as we do as a global scientific community, so that we can deliver the IPCC reports the world needs to hear”.
In a statement published on Monday, IPCC chair Skea said reaching consensus on the schedule for the reports is “vital”. He added that the assessments provide authoritative scientific evidence to inform national climate policies, strengthen adaptation and resilience and support access to climate finance, as well as helping communicate the scale of the climate crisis and the urgency of efforts to tackle it.
The post IPCC scientists vow to press on with climate reports despite political deadlock appeared first on Climate Home News.
IPCC scientists vow to press on with climate reports despite political deadlock
An Lambrechts is a biodiversity politics expert at Greenpeace International with extensive experience in biodiversity-related multilateral negotiations. She is the head of the Greenpeace delegation at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP17 happening in Yerevan, Armenia.
In 2022, COP15 delivered the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. With COP17 starting in Yerevan, we are now halfway to the deadline, and according to the first Global Review of progress, countries are not on track to meet the biodiversity targets, and implementation must accelerate fast.
One of the main findings of the Global Review is that funding falls far short of the scale needed to halt and reverse nature loss. But the crisis facing the world’s biodiversity is not an absolute scarcity of capital – it is a profound public policy distortion.
The global economy currently spends roughly $30 destroying nature for every single dollar invested in its protection. According to a report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a staggering $2.4 trillion is spent in public subsidies for fossil fuels, agriculture and water use, while global investment in biodiversity conservation and restoration stands at a mere $220 billion.
Countries urged to ramp up “insufficient” nature policies at COP17
Yet, discussions about how to close the biodiversity finance gap continue to claim that salvation lies in mobilising private capital, scaling offsets and “derisking” investments in nature. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of both the nature of ecological stewardship and of the global financial architecture.
Biodiversity conservation is not a speculative investment portfolio – it is the foundation of human survival. The health of our planet is a non-monetisable, non-excludable public good. Expecting profit-seeking private capital to protect nature perpetuates the structural drivers of ecosystem destruction in the first place.
But if private market mechanisms cannot save biodiversity, where will the necessary public resources come from?
Money going to the wrong places
The answer lies in recovering the vast public wealth currently drained by cross-border tax abuse, financial secrecy and corporate impunity. Finance and environment ministers meeting in Yerevan must give a strong political signal that, to avert ecological breakdown, countries need to take swift action to reform global tax rules, eliminate harmful public subsidies and cancel unsustainable sovereign debts for the public revenues to end up where they belong.
Extractive sectors such as industrial agriculture, fishing, timber and mining continue business-as-usual, often heavily subsidised by public treasuries, while voluntary carbon and biodiversity offset markets pose a serious risk to nature conservation. Offset schemes have delivered only a negligible fraction of the funding needed to preserve ecosystems, allowing industries to continue with their destructive business-as-usual practices.
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In advanced economies, public funding often actively undermines biodiversity. In Europe, over €5.3 billion in public subsidies is funnelled annually into intensive forest biomass harvesting under renewable energ