Trump's Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement (Written as a Magazine Article)

On December 12th, 2015, one hundred and ninety-six parties at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, France, entered into the renowned Paris Climate Agreement. Nearly ten years later, the agreement is still firmly in place as a legally binding international treaty. It asks every nation to utilize the most effective, accessible sciences to implement environmentally safe technologies and prevent further climate change. However, the United States has not remained as consistent as these aims. On January 20th, 2025, upon his inauguration, President Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. Now, it has joined Iran, Libya, and Yemen as one of only four countries that are not a part of the treaty. This baffling statistic is further proof of Trump’s isolationist foreign policy, pushing away our allies and straying from common, global goals.

Trump’s withdrawal did not come as a surprise; he previously withdrew from the Paris Agreement during his first term. The U.S. only rejoined in 2020 when President Biden rectified Trump’s faulty decision. Furthermore, during his campaign rallies, Trump often preached his disbelief in climate science, criticizing electric vehicles, wind turbines, and what he referred to as Biden’s “Green New Scam.”

He even joked that rising temperatures would conveniently lead to more oceanfront property. Such a statement is woefully ignorant; the fact is that climate change worsens each year. It is both incorrect and insensitive to undermine the concerns and activism of the millions of Americans who feel obligated to protect our planet because our leaders won’t.

Trump’s withdrawal is further evidence of his desire to push forward with fossil-fuel extraction and discard clean-energy technology. Hoping to federally enforce his beliefs, since reclaiming the Oval Office in January, Trump has taken several measures to reduce government spending on energy and climate-related matters.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright embodied the Trump administration’s attitude towards climate action at a conference in London, calling the efforts to reach net zero emissions by 2050 a waste of time and money. Wright stated that. “Net Zero 2050 is a sinister goal…It’s a terrible goal. It’s both unachievable by any practical means, [and] the aggressive pursuit of it…has not delivered any benefits, but it has delivered tremendous costs.”

Trump has fired thousands of employees from environmental government agencies. About 170 people were fired from the National Science Foundation, 388 people were fired from the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of the Interior laid off 2700 civilians. Most drastically, the Forest Service, under the division of the Department of Agriculture, fired over 3400 employees. 

In addition, he has reduced federal funding of energy rebates, low-income solar installations, and electric vehicle chargers by the billions. Clean energy industries across America have begun to feel in danger as Trump has threatened tariffs on allied nations. These tariffs would pause permits for wind projects and reduce the clean energy tax credits contained in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act by hundreds of billions of dollars.

Even more, the State Department withdrew $4B that was meant to go towards funding the United Nations Green Climate Fund, and multiple climate-related programs at USAID have been stopped as Trump attempts to terminate the agency. These cancelled programs include vital projects like solar panel installation on hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa and farms in Central America.

Equally as alarming, agencies that fund scientific research to support climate efforts, like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation (NSF), have temporarily halted their review panels, responsible for evaluating grant proposals, as they determine how to deal with Trump’s executive orders. Specifically, NSF officers were asked to evaluate whether or not existing grants aligned with Trump’s agenda. Research is actively being stymied.

Biden had a famed focus on positioning the United States to be a leader in the fight against climate change. He approved a whopping $1 trillion in clean energy loans, grants, and tax credits. These notably large funds were part of legislative packages that included the IRA and the bipartisan infrastructure law. He made great efforts and achieved success, bringing greenhouse gas emissions down to twenty percent less than 2005 levels. Still, there is undeniably more that must be done to reach the goal of emissions falling to between 50-52% lower than 2005 levels by 2030. Instead of bringing this goal to fruition, Trump is working backwards.

Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement has prompted more US officials and foreign nations to fear that he is undermining past climate efforts. I agree that this is a real possibility, given the extreme extent to which he hopes to pull back from global warming regulation.

A concerned Gina McCarthy, former White House climate adviser and former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, explained that she was frustrated because “The United States must continue to show leadership on the international stage if [it] wants to have any say in how trillions of dollars in financial investments, policies, and decisions [are managed].”

Laurence Tubiana, the CEO of the European Climate Foundation and an architect of the Paris Agreement stressed that the United States’ withdrawal is unfortunate as “The impacts of the climate crisis are also worsening.” Tubiana referenced the wildfires in Los Angeles, explaining that “Americans, like everyone else, are affected by worsening climate change.”

As Trump continues his efforts to avoid spending federal dollars on climate action, he clearly disregards this concept. Although the United States is burning before his eyes, he contends that climate change is insignificant.

Alden Meyer, a climate negotiations analyst with the European think tank E3G, pointed out that “not a single country followed the U.S. out the door.” Instead, they have only denounced Trump’s decision to remove the United States from global efforts to mitigate climate change. 

A large portion of the American public has voiced similar protests. The public is rightfully exercising its right to call out the fatal implications that Trump’s actions will have. An estimated half of Americans “somewhat” or “strongly” oppose the withdrawal, according to a poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs research. Only about 2 in 10 American adults “somewhat” or “strongly” support Trump’s decision, while one quarter is neutral on the matter. Although a majority of the backlash is from Democrats, the Republican population of America is shockingly ambivalent. Only slightly less than half of Republicans are in favor of the withdrawal, 2 in 10 being opposed. This may be due to the economic benefits that go lost as America strays from investing in “clean” technology.

Tubiana detailed that “there is unstoppable economic momentum behind the global transition [to green efforts], which the U.S. has gained from and led but now risks forfeiting.” She cited that the International Energy Agency projected that the global market for clean energy tech will triple and surpass $2 trillion in less than 10 years. Trump’s adamance to increase US funds in the short term has blinded him from recognizing the potential value of the clean tech market in America and the consumer appeal of sustainable products. 

Annually, the United States is the 2nd biggest carbon polluting country, responsible for nearly 22% of the carbon dioxide that has been emitted into the atmosphere since 1950, as stated by the Global Carbon Project. In 2023 alone, we put 4.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in the air. As Trump furthers his agenda to trivialize climate change, it is vital that Americans remain cognizant of our shameful contributions and the urgent need to take action against it. Trump’s blatant dismissal of global warming could potentially prevent the efforts of other nations and future presidents from having any great effect.

As climate activist and writer Bill McKibben said, “For the next few years, the best we can hope is that Washington won’t manage to wreck the efforts of others.”

Bibliography

Bearak, Max. "Trump Orders a U.S. Exit from the World's Main Climate Pact." The New York Times. Last modified January 29, 2025. Accessed February 26, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/20/climate/trump-paris-agreement-climate.html.

Daly, Matthew, and Seth Borenstein. "Trump Signs Executive Order Directing US Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement — Again." Associated Press. Last modified January 20, 2025. Accessed February 26, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/trump-paris-agreement-climate-change-788907bb89fe307a964be757313cdfb0#.

Storrow, Benjamin, and Jean Chemnick. "'Viciousness' of Trump's Climate Attacks Stuns Even His Critics." Politico. Last modified February 22, 2025. Accessed February 26, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/21/trump-gutted-climate-policy-across-federal-government-00204998.

United Nations. "The Paris Agreement." United Nations. Accessed February 26, 2025. https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/paris-agreement.