Earlier this week, the United States withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, an international treaty aimed at slowing and reversing some of the causes and effects of human-induced climate change.
The monumental treaty, first signed at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris in 2015 and put into effect in late 2016, has been signed by 195 global entities — 194 states plus the European Union — since its inception, according to the United Nations.
The main goal of the agreement is to limit global temperature increases in this century via emissions reductions to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), a threshold of which going beyond many experts believe would accelerate and exacerbate climate anomalies, like more frequent and intense wildfires, droughts, heat stress and more — all which would affect systems from agriculture to region livability, along with harming natural ecosystems and their species biodiversity. Although the 2-degree limit is the goal, countries are also to pursue the goal of limiting increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The official U.S. withdrawal was expected; on day one of his second administration, just over a year ago, President Trump announced his intention to withdraw the U.S. from the treaty and informed the United Nations in a written statement that January 27, 2026, would be the final day that the country is formally part of the pact.
This isn’t the first time the U.S. has withdrawn from the historic treaty. In 2017, President Trump, in his first term, announced his intent to leave the agreement. However, due to a rule in the agreement saying no country could leave within the first three years of it being ratified (Article 28 of the Paris Agreement), the president had to wait until 2019 to take any further steps. On Nov. 4, 2019, he similarly informed the U.N. that the U.S.would be pulling out of the treaty in one year’s time; on Nov. 4, 2020, true to his word, the U.S. left the treaty for the first time, making the U.S. the only country in the treaty to withdraw from it.
The U.S. later rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement in 2021, announced on former President Biden’s first day in office, and put it into effect the following month.
With the second withdrawal, the U.S. joins only three other U.N. member states — Iran, Libya, and Yemen — as the only nations not party to the agreement.
The decision to pull out of the agreement for a second time has come with scrutiny, especially as scientific agencies around the world and domestically are noting ever-increasing global temperatures largely induced by emissions of greenhouse gases.
Allies and supporters of the move to withdraw routinely cite stifling domestic jobs and the economy with little environmental benefits as reasons for a deserved exit. Critics of the withdrawal and environmentalists alike push back, arguing that the costs of climate change are predicted to be far greater than any spending the agreement would mandate to reduce emissions. The National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) cites a figure of over $6 trillion in costs should the U.S. fail to meet its climate goals in the coming decades, with global GDP reduced by a fourth by the century’s end if trends continue.
“Thanks to President Trump, the U.S. has officially escaped from the Paris Climate Agreement, which undermined American values and priorities, wasted hard-earned taxpayer dollars, and stifled economic growth,” wrote White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers in an email, according to Politico.
A 2025 U.N. report found that, despite the agreement, the emissions reductions — and subsequently the slowing of the trajectory to warm beyond 2 degrees Celsius has seen less-than-ideal progress. In business-as-usual scenarios, i.e., without deliberate climate action from nations around the world, projections of increasing temperature far surpass the 2 degree Celsius limitation aspiration.
Advocates for the Paris Climate Agreement argue that, as the world continues to trend in the wrong direction, tougher action on climate is needed — and the U.S. pulling out again surrenders leadership that it should have on the issue. Behind China, with 15.86Bt of CO2e (28.64 percent of global emissions in 2025) the United States was the second largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world at 6.4Bt of CO2e (11.55 percent of global emissions in 2025), according to Climate Trace, consistent with historical trends. Furthermore, Rhodium Group’s analysis found that, after two years of emissions reductions in 2023 and 2024, 2025 saw a 2.4 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
Combined with “drill, baby, drill” rhetoric, the president often expresses in reference to being pro-fossil fuels and less enthusiastic about renewable energy, many believe both the actions and rhetoric around climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy sources will do further harm.
Beyond the Paris Climate Agreement, the U.S. also withdrew from the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, International Renewable Energy Agency, U.N. Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries, U.N. Energy, U.N. Oceans, and U.N. Water. A full list of international organizations that the U.S. withdrew from this past week can be found in the official White House press release.
