Trump withdraws U.S. from 66 international organizations and treaties, including major climate groups
President Trump on Wednesday withdrew the United States from 66 international organizations and agreements, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
One presidential memorandumTrump said it was against the interests of the United States to remain affiliated with, participate in, or otherwise provide support to organizations that include groups addressing education, economic development, cybersecurity, and human rights, among others. He instructed all administrative units and institutions to take the necessary steps to ensure the “withdrawal” of the United States from the organizations as soon as possible.
The president has already announced his withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, an international agreement aimed at limiting global warming. below 2 degrees Celsius The latest move to prevent the worst effects of climate change will further isolate the country at a critical moment, experts said.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is a global agreement created in 1992 and signed by nearly 200 countries to address climate change through coordinated international action, including by limiting planet-warming greenhouse gases. Trump had already raised eyebrows last year by refusing to attend or send high-level delegates to the annual UN Conference of the Parties meeting in Brazil; instead, Gov. Gavin Newsom took the lead.
Gina McCarthy, the former director of the US Environmental Protection Agency and who also served as the White House’s first national climate advisor, said in a statement that withdrawing from the UN Framework Convention was “shortsighted, shameful and stupid.”
“As the only country in the world that is not part of the UNFCCC agreement, the Trump administration is throwing away decades of U.S. climate change leadership and global cooperation,” said McCarthy, who is now president of the America All Climate Coalition.
David Widawsky, director of the World Resources Institute, called the move “a strategic mistake that gives away America’s advantage.”
“The 30-year agreement is the foundation of international climate cooperation. Withdrawal would not only sideline America, it would also take the United States out of the arena entirely,” Widawsky said.
Trump on Wednesday also withdrew the United States from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading global scientific body that studies global warming. Major assessments, published every six or seven years, help inform climate policies around the world.
Removing the United States from the IPCC would not prevent individual U.S. scientists from contributing, but the nation as a whole would no longer be able to guide scientific assessments, said Delta Merner, deputy director of accountability for the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Climate and Energy Program, who has attended previous IPCC meetings.
“Moving away doesn’t cause science to disappear; it just leaves people, policymakers, and businesses in the United States flying in the dark at a time when reliable climate information is most urgently needed,” Merner said. “This is a clear attempt to weaken the scientific guardrails that protect the public from disinformation, delay, and careless decision-making. Such a move will make it easier for fossil fuel interests to distort the facts while front-line communities pay the price.”
Received Trump significant donations Coming from oil and gas companies during the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump has largely supported the development of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. He has also taken various steps to limit scientific research and climate action in the United States; this includes disbanding the National Center for Atmospheric Research, one of the world’s leading climate and weather research institutions in Boulder, Colo.
Last year, the Trump administration also He fired hundreds of scientists Working to prepare the Congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment; and took down the website It contained previous reviews.
Other climate, environment and energy groups that Trump pulled back from on Wednesday include the International Renewable Energy Agency, the International Solar Alliance, the 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Agreement and the Inter-American Global Change Research Institute.
But the United States has become the first country to leave the U.N. Framework Convention, according to Manish Bapna, president and chief executive of the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.
“President Trump is withdrawing the United States from the UNFCCC despite the danger to the country,” Bapna said. “Letting other countries write the global rules of the road for the inevitable transition to clean energy is not only self-defeating, but also misses out on trillions of dollars in investment, jobs, lower energy costs, and new markets for American clean technologies.”
