With just one day to go before the US heads to the polls, Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump are neck and neck in the race for the White House.
While climate change has not been high on the campaign agenda, the outcome of the presidential election will have huge implications for the world’s battle to limit the damage caused by global warming, like the hurricanes Milton and Helene that hit the south-east of the US hard in the last few months.
Former President Trump has promised to take the US out of the Paris climate agreement – as he did briefly during his first term in office – and is also reported to be under pressure to pull the US out of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for the first time if he becomes president.
While leaving the Paris Agreement would be legally straightforward, legal experts are divided on whether Trump could withdraw the US from the UNFCCC without the approval of the US Senate and – if he did – how easy it would be for a future president to re-join.
Analysts expect either move to weaken the influence of the US in the UN climate talks, limit the country’s own action against climate change and reduce pressure on other big greenhouse-gas emitters like China to submit ambitious climate plans to the UN next year.
Exiting the Paris pact
The Trump campaign has promised to take the US out of the Paris climate agreement if he wins, joining just three other countries outside the landmark climate deal: Iran, Libya and Yemen. During Trump’s last term in office, the climate-change sceptic managed to yank the US out only briefly – for less than four months.
The agreement – which then US President Barack Obama helped negotiate in 2015 – stipulated that countries could not ask to leave for three years after it came into force in 2016. At the earliest opportunity, on November 4, 2019, the Trump administration filed a request to withdraw – but formally a year must pass between a country notifying its withdrawal from the accord and its actual exit.
The US left the Paris Agreement the day after the November 2020 presidential election was won by Democrat Joe Biden. On his first day in office – January 20, 2021 – Biden signed the papers for the US to rejoin, which it did a month later.
If elected again, this time around Trump would be able to file to quit the Paris Agreement on his first day in office and the US would leave a year later. This would mean the world’s second biggest-emitting country would no longer have to submit a national climate action plan to the United Nations every five years.
As all countries are supposed to publish an updated plan next year, however – before the US under Trump could officially leave – Washington would still be expected to submit one.
Any plan submitted by a Trump administration is likely to be far weaker than one from a Democrat-led government though – and that weakening could be contagious, particularly with regard to geopolitical rival China, the world’s carbon biggest polluter.
Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said a potential Trump victory in November would “take off any pressure China may feel” to make its own climate action plan ambitious.
Leaving the Paris Agreement would also mean the US does not have to report on its emissions each year, and it would have weaker legal responsibilities to provide climate finance to developing countries.
UNFCCC case uncertain
Trump could go even further though in cutting ties with the UN climate process. While the Trump campaign has not clarified its position, both Politico and Bloomberg reported that lobbyists have drafted executive orders they hope to get Trump to sign which would pull the US out of both the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The UNFCCC is the founding treaty of the UN climate talks, under which the Paris Agreement was negotiated. It was agreed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and includes all countries – even the three that have not ratified the Paris pact.
Nathaniel Keohane, who was a climate adviser to former President Obama and is now head of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, told a webinar recently that “it would be a difference of kind – not just of degree, I think – relative to pulling out of the Paris Agreement”. Leaving the UNFCCC would “deeply harm long-term US interests”, he said, adding that while he opposed an exit from the Paris Agreement, “it was something that was more limited in its underlying, foundational aspects”.
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Nonetheless, David Waskow, director of the World Resources Institute’s international climate initiative, told journalists “there are ways, even with a withdrawal, for the US or other parties to be fully engaged” – as the US has been under the UN Convention on Biodiversity which it never ratified.
Todd Stern, who was US climate envoy under Obama, told the audience at his book launch in London last week that he did not think Trump would leave the UNFCCC, and that it is unclear whether he legally could under the US constitution without the Senate’s backing.
That’s because unlike the Paris Agreement – for which Obama signed an instrument of acceptance on behalf of the US without submitting it to Congress – the UNFCCC was endorsed by the US Senate almost unanimously. The US constitution says the president has the power to make treaties “provided two thirds of the Senators present concur” – but doesn’t mention leaving treaties.
Asked if a President could leave the UNFCCC, Stern said: ““I don’t know and I don’t know if the lawyers know”.
One law professor, Dan Bodansky from Arizona State University, told Climate Home “the general consensus is that, in practice, the president can withdraw the United States from treaties to which the Senate gave advice and consent”.
The only similar previous case was in 1979, he said, when then President Jimmy Carter withdrew the US from its defence agreements with Taiwan as part of normalising relations with China. Republican Senator Barry Goldwater challenged the withdrawal in the Supreme Court whose judges were split on the matter. Four said it wasn’t a matter for the court, and one said the President could terminate treaties.
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But, in practice, Yale Law School professor Harold Koh, a former legal adviser to the State Department, told Bloomberg news agency that if a president did try to leave the UNFCCC “the second they did that, it would be litigated and it would go on for a couple of years”.
There’s also uncertainty among experts about whether a future president could rejoin the climate convention without the backing of two-thirds of the Senate. Signing up for the first time required that, but the original Senate backing in 1992 could be enough to enable re-entry.
UNFCCC budget squeeze
If Trump does pull the US out, Stockholm Environment Institute researcher Richard Klein said that “one of the most direct effects will be on the UNFCCC’s budget”.
The US currently contributes about a fifth of the Bonn-based organisation’s budget. It is already low on funds this year, forcing it to make cut-backs while taking on ever-greater responsibilities in the world’s effort to tackle climate change. With the US out, China would become the UNFCCC’s biggest funder.
A US exit would also change COP climate summits. COP stands for “Conference of the Parties” to the UNFCCC – and if the US left only the Paris Agreement, it would still be a party to the UNFCCC.
But if it left the UNFCCC, it would no longer be a party and become just an observer – the same category as business lobbyists and climate campaigners. As such, US officials would be barred from officially participating in negotiations on issues such as how to respond to the global assessment of climate action due at COP33 in 2028 – and placed lower down the pecking order in terms of making speeches.
Keohane said quitting the UN convention “would sort of tie both hands behind the back of the USA in terms of its ability to shape and inform the basic conversations going on within the [UNFCCC] and the COP”.
(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Megan Rowling)
The post Legal experts say Trump could quit Paris pact – but leaving UNFCCC much harder appeared first on Climate Home News.
Legal experts say Trump could quit Paris pact – but leaving UNFCCC much harder
Climate Change
“Sink or swim”: WA Gov hugely underestimating decline in regional gas demand while sleeping on green exports, new report finds
PERTH, Tuesday 13 October 2026 — A new report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals green commodity exports are an untapped economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, while offering a genuine solution for decarbonising Asia.
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State is a comprehensive analysis of the declining gas market in Asia, and the untapped economic opportunity for WA to become a global leader in green commodity exports while driving the regional shift away from fossil fuels.
The report offers key recommendations for the WA Government to support regional decarbonisation through an orderly phase out of gas exports in favour of green iron and other green exports. It comes as global climate leaders from across business, politics and advocacy prepare to meet for the Global Citizen Now: Perth event focused on decarbonising WA.
Key findings:
- Gas demand is falling across WA’s core markets in Asia: Gas demand fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline, driven by a combination of global geopolitical factors and domestic concerns.
- Policy shifts in key markets since the war on Iran now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas: Japan, South Korea and China have legislated energy plans that prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- New WA gas would arrive in a saturated, uncertain Asian market filled with cheaper gas: The US is now the world’s largest liquefied gas producer and plans to double its capacity as it also targets Asian markets.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to sustain WA’s economy: WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars.
- Exporting more WA gas is likely to delay or impede Asia decarbonisation: Despite claims by the gas industry, there is no evidence that WA gas is displacing coal in Asia, and in fact diverts resources from genuine decarbonisation options.
Geoff Bice, WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific said: “As our export partners in Asia shift away from expensive and polluting gas, the WA Government has a golden opportunity to pivot our economy to green exports, like green iron, which is the most effective way to help our region to decarbonise.
“The writing is on the wall: gas is in decline, renewables are our future. In this context, it makes zero sense for the government to encourage high risk projects like Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal at Scott Reef.
“This report clearly shows that the WA Government faces a choice: sink or swim. They can either allow the gas industry to keep ripping off West Australians and continue propping up its decline, or choose the path that will deliver enormous benefits to the state and the world by becoming a leader in the rapidly expanding green economy.”
Tom Quinn, Managing Director of Springmount Advisory: “Western Australia prospers when it looks to the future and builds for future demand. Twenty years from now, what the world needs is green commodities made using WAs abundant renewable resources. Just like it did with iron ore in the 1950s and gas in the 1970s, WA should look to the future and build what the world will need, not sunsetting industries like gas that are already past their peak.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lucy.keller@greenpeace.org
A report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals the untapped green economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, which also offers a genuine solution for decarbonisation in Asia.
Is Western Australia clinging to a fading gas industry while a thriving green future passes it by? As major Asian trading partners rapidly pivot away from volatile gas imports toward cheap solar and battery storage, this report exposes a high-stakes choice: risk becoming stranded in an oversupplied fossil fuel market, or harness WA’s unmatched sun and wind to lead the global clean energy transition.
Summary
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State reveals that Western Australia (WA) faces a critical juncture as falling Asian gas demand, geopolitical gas supply volatility and accelerating renewable energy deployment undermine the long-term economic viability of gas exports. By harnessing its world-class wind and solar resources, the report demonstrates that WA can execute an orderly phase-out of gas and pioneer a green commodity export economy that could generate $987 billion in economic value by 2060, create 24,000 ongoing jobs, and drive a 9.6% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Key Findings
- Gas demand is falling in Asia – WA can no longer rely on gas exports: Gas demand in core Asian markets fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline in 2026. Legislated energy plans in Japan, South Korea, and China now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- Asia is increasing renewables, importing gas just gets in the way: Evidence from markets like Thailand suggests that gas imports are increasingly crowding out cheaper renewable energy investments and battery storage rather than displacing coal, locking in more emissions over time.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to decarbonise Asia – this is a major win for WA: With world-class renewables, WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars ($987 billion) and support a genuine 9.6% reduction in global emissions.
Recommendations to WA government
Recommendation 1: Plan an orderly gas phase-out aligned with a trading partner pivot plan
Implement a managed, orderly phase-out of gas exports aligned with trading partners’ decarbonisation pathways, rather than waiting for demand to collapse, by:
- Developing and implementing a staged phase-out of gas facilities aligned with feedstock supply expiry or typical end of facility lifespans.
- Committing to no new gas development for gas expansion, including Browse and Kimberley fields.
- Developing new, reciprocal trade relationships with existing gas trade partners, structured to progressively replace gas exports with green commodities – integrated with recommendation 2.
Recommendation 2: Develop an integrated green commodity export strategy, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub
Establish an integrated green commodity export strategy that immediately prioritises green iron development, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub, by:
- Committing to green commodity export targets to give industry and investors a clear demand signal.
- Prioritising green iron as the lead sector within the broader green commodity strategy, given WA’s iron ore endowment and first-mover potential.
Recommendation 3: Reject false solutions such as carbon dumping (CCS) and blue hydrogen
Reject carbon dumping (also described as carbon capture and storage, or CCS) and blue hydrogen as viable decarbonisation technologies, and prioritise green hydrogen and proven renewables for clean energy and fuel production by:
- Excluding blue hydrogen projects (and CCS-dependent projects) from all government support programs.
- Requiring existing hydrogen-based production (including ammonia, methanol, synthetic fuels) to have clear, near-term transition timelines to switch to green hydrogen production.
What you can do
Together, we can push for a prosperous green future.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
REPORT: “From Gas to Green” Building Western Australia’s Future State
Cleaner cooking projects in the UN carbon market will have to set aside a share of their credits to insure against the risk that the trees they save are lost to fire, drought or logging, after the market’s regulator rejected calls to exempt the sector.
The requirement is part of a new rulebook that the Paris Agreement carbon market regulator – the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body – approved last Friday for programmes that aim to cut emissions by distributing new and cleaner cookstoves in regions that still burn wood or charcoal for cooking.
These are the UN mechanism’s first rulebooks for cookstoves, one of the carbon market’s most popular credit types and also one of its most criticised for overstating climate benefits.
They consist of two methodologies: one for programmes that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by distributing more efficient cookstoves that burn less wood or charcoal, and a separate methodology for projects shifting households to lower-emissions cookers running on electricity or liquid petroleum gas (LPG).
Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of the Supervisory Body, said “this decision gives cleaner cooking projects a new pathway under the UN carbon market, with clear rules to ensure that each credit represents a real and credible emission reduction”.
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Exemption push rejected
More efficient cookstove projects earn credits based on the amount of carbon they save by preserving trees that would have otherwise been cut down and burned for fuel. But if those trees later burn in a wildfire or are logged, the carbon stored would be released anyway, erasing the climate benefits of the credits.
Several carbon credit developers, conservation NGOs and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) disputed that cookstove projects face this risk, in what critics described as a “coordinated lobbying campaign”.
They argued that, unlike forest protection schemes, this type of credit represents a “flow” of avoided emissions rather than a “stock” of stored carbon that can be released. They also warned that requiring a buffer would impose disproportionate costs and undermine the financial viability of these activities.
But the UN carbon market regulator was not persuaded by the argument. It decided that projects would have to protect against this reversal risk by handing over a percentage of credits to a so-called “buffer pool” instead of selling them.
‘New paradigm’
The amount of credits to be given up is calculated by applying different methods for natural risks, like wildfires, droughts or hurricanes, and human-caused ones, such as logging or land clearing.
For natural risks, project developers will need to apply local risk values derived from new modelling published by a group of independent scientists.
Campaigners have broadly welcomed the decision. Federica Dossi, an expert at Brussels-based advocacy group Carbon Market Watch, said it sets a new paradigm for calculating reversal risk based on empirical data. “This approach is grounded in science and we hope to see this now being adopted by other carbon crediting mechanisms in the voluntary market,” she added.
Backers claim this method is more rigorous than current practice in the voluntary carbon market, which largely relies on expert guesswork.
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Pushback over science
As Climate Home News previously revealed, the same industry and NGO groups that sought an exemption from the “buffer pool”, along with some corporate buyers, criticised the use of a study backed by the UN carbon market’s experts that recommended the new risk assessment approach.
The groups pushed for more flexible rules that would have allowed natural risk values drawn from other sources, including national databases, or from the project developers themselves.
While the Supervisory Body rejected this approach, it gave project developers and countries the option to propose alternative values that would first need to be vetted by the mechanism’s expert panel and then approved by the regulator.
A carbon market expert told Climate Home News that, while it is too early to say how this provision will be used, they expect requests will have to be backed up with solid scientific evidence, lowering the risk of unfounded claims.
Policy discounts questioned
To guard against human-caused risks, projects will need to apply a flat 20% value set by the Supervisory Body, at the bottom of the 20-45% range recommended by its technical experts ahead of last week’s meeting.
That value can be further reduced by up to two-thirds if the host country has an emission-reduction plan covering forests, a long-term climate strategy and a framework for the UN’s REDD+ forest protection scheme.
Injy Johnstone, senior research fellow at the Munich-based Max Planck Institute, said that