America’s withdrawal from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the top international body to study and counter the climate crisis, is “regrettable and unfortunate”, the EU’s climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said on Thursday.
President Donald Trump pulled the US – the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter after China – out of the Paris climate agreement for a second time as soon as he took office last year. He also asked his Secretary of State to check which international organisations and treaties were “contrary to the interests of the United States”.
Following up on that review, Trump instructed his administration and government agencies on Wednesday to immediately withdraw the US from 66 groups. Of these, 31 are part of the UN system, and include the UNFCCC, UN Energy, and UN Oceans.
“Many of these bodies promote radical climate policies, global governance, and ideological programs that conflict with US sovereignty and economic strength,” the White House said in a memo.
Trump also ordered the US out of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the non-UN body that coordinates the scientific work and produces regular reports that steer global climate action.
Hoekstra said that the EU would “unequivocally” keep supporting international research and remained committed to global cooperation on tackling climate change.
“And at home, we’ll keep pursuing our agenda of climate action, competitiveness, and independence,” the climate commissioner added.
Germany’s environment minister Carsten Schneider said in a statement that Washington’s withdrawal had come as “no surprise”, and that the recent COP30 talks in Brazil had shown the US was alone in its anti-climate stance.
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