After US Withdraws from Paris Agreement, What Comes Next for Global Climate Action?

On January 20, a crowd at a stadium in Washington, D.C., erupted in cheers as U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord on stage. of order He said the move was to prioritize “America first.” But environmental groups condemned the decision, saying that withdrawing the world's second-largest greenhouse gas emitter from the agreement would simultaneously cede U.S. influence in international negotiations to rival clean energy giant China. , argued that it would make climate change even worse.

“This is an issue where the United States and the Trump administration are shooting themselves in the foot,” he says. David Waskow at the World Resources Institute, a global environmental nonprofit organization. “That would be ignoring the United States.”

This is the second time President Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is a landmark agreement reached in 2015 to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial averages. It took three years for the initial withdrawal in 2017 to be formalized under UN treaty provisions, and the US only left for a few months before former President Joe Biden rejoined the country in 2021.

The deal now requires a year for withdrawal to be formally recognized, at which point the U.S. will be the only major economy not part of the deal. Other countries that have not signed are Libya, Yemen and Iran.

“This is definitely not good news for international climate action,” he says. Li Shuo At the Asian Social Policy Institute in Washington, DC. Unlike the United States' first withdrawal, this second withdrawal came at a time when the country's ambitious emissions reduction ambitions were already facing geopolitical, social, and economic obstacles. he says. Last year saw record levels of global emissions, while average global temperatures rose above 1.5°C for the first time.

A U.S. withdrawal would leave the country with no leverage to drive further emissions cuts, potentially creating an excuse for countries around the world to scale back efforts to tackle climate change. “The momentum of climate change around the world was declining even before President Trump was elected,” Lee said.

But Waskow said the U.S. withdrawal does not mean “the bottom has dropped” in global climate action. Countries responsible for more than 90 percent of global emissions are still committed to the Paris Agreement. Wind and solar energy, electric vehicles, batteries and other clean technologies also play a much bigger role in the global economy now than they did when the U.S. first left, he said.

“The rest of the world is also transitioning to clean energy,” he says. Manish Bapna at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S. environmental advocacy group. “This doesn't stop that transition, it slows it down.” But it raises questions about what role the U.S. will play in shaping that future, he says.

Looming is China, which controls many of the key clean energy industries, from solar panels to batteries, and is increasingly exporting its technology to the rest of the world. “The United States would not only be ceding influence over how those markets are formed, but also the duration of those markets,” Waskow said. “I don't think other countries think of the United States first when they think about who they should engage with.”

The global retreat from climate action also comes as the new Trump administration moved quickly to reverse, abandon, or block the policies of its predecessor in a flurry of executive orders issued on its first day in office. These include banning federal permits for wind energy and reversing policies introduced by Mr. Biden to promote electric vehicles. Other plans aim to expand fossil fuel development on federal lands, coastal waters and Alaska and increase natural gas exports to settle further orders. I declare It's a “national energy emergency.” “We train, baby, we train,” he said in his inaugural address.