By Steve Goreham
Originally published in MasterResource.
The Trump administration has issued an executive order that withdraws the United States from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and other international bodies. The order pulls the US back from organizations pursuing climate policies and other efforts that the administration does not consider to be in the national interest. The US abandonment of world climate groups may accelerate a pushback against climate and net zero energy policies.
The Trump memorandum issued on January 6 was titled, “Withdrawing the United States from International Organizations, Conventions, and Treaties that Are Contrary to the Interests of the United States.” It orders the US government to end participation and funding of 66 international organizations, including the UNFCCC and 30 other UN organizations.
The UNFCCC, an organization and treaty that was first established in 1992 at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, has grown to include 198 nations. The UNFCCC is the UN organization tasked with supporting “the global response to the threat of climate change.” The withdrawal leaves the US as the only nation not part of the UNFCCC.
Since the 1980s, the United Nations has used the ideology of Climatism, the fear of human-caused climate change, to pursue three objectives: 1) establish the UN as a world environmental leader, 2) strengthen efforts to establish a world government, and 3) redistribute wealth from the world’s advanced nations to the developing nations.
The UN has become the world’s leader in what is called the world’s biggest environmental issue. International climate events are held every month of the year, culminating in the COP (conference of the parties) event at the end of the year, with more than 50,000 people attending. The COP31, the 31st annual COP, will convene in November of 2026 in Antalya, Turkey.
The multi-nation COP meetings led by the UN serve as a form of world government, placing demands on individual nations in the name of fighting global warming. Former French President Jacques Chirac stated that the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty of 1997 was “the first step toward global governance.” Each year, the leadership at COP meetings demands that hundreds of billions of dollars be redistributed from the US and other wealthy nations to developing nations.
The trump order also withdraws the US from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC has been the UN body responsible for “assessing the science related to climate change.” The IPCC issued six assessment reports from 1990 to 2023, each warning that humans were responsible for global warming. With the withdrawal, the US will no longer participate in the IPCC or fund IPCC efforts.
The recent executive order continues Trump administration efforts to withdraw from global climate efforts. This follows a February 2025 order withdrawing the US from the 2015 Paris Climate Accords, which will take effect next month.
The withdrawals attracted immediate and vehement outrage from international leaders, including Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, former US Vice-President Al Gore, and environmental groups including the Natural Resource Defense Council and the Sierra Club. Gina McCarthy, former top climate advisor in the Biden administration, stated that the withdrawals can “only harm the US economy, jobs and living standards, as wildfires, floods, mega-storms and droughts get rapidly worse.” But evidence shows that deaths from climate events are declining, and wildfires, floods, storms, and droughts are not getting worse.
The funding cut-off will have a significant negative impact on the UN budget. The Trump administration has been cutting funding not only to climate groups, but also the Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN Population Fund, the World Health Organization, and other bodies. The administration charges these groups with sponsoring “woke” and “divisive” causes that are “contrary to the interests of the United States.”
In 2025, the US provided $820 million, or 22% of the UN’s regular budget of $3.7 billion, down from 31% in 2024. The regular budget is part of an annual total UN revenue of over $65 billion, including peacekeeping and voluntary contributions to groups like the World Food Program and the UN Development Program. US cuts will heavily impact the budget for climate and other programs.
The US withdrawal from UN climate programs may signal a worldwide retreat from Climatism and the push for net zero energy policies. Leading political groups in Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom appear to be joining the US to move back to sensible energy policy and away from efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
US participation in the UNFCCC treaty was approved by Congress in 1992 and signed by President George Bush. The Trump administration withdrawal will likely be challenged in court.
The rejection of support for UN climate change efforts moves in a radically new direction in global environmental policy. Will other nations join the US and step back from climate alarmism? Year 2026 may provide the answers for a political movement that has not only lost its momentum but is also in peril.
Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy and author of the book Green Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure.
Rejecting Climatism: Trump Withdraws from UNFCCC and 66 International Organizations
As an old cockney comic, Tommy Trinder, would say – You lucky people. Now Washington can concentrate on the fast warming climate in Greenland.
Starmer sends just one military officer to Greenland in response to Trump threats
Britain has dispatched a single military officer to Greenland as Denmark reinforces its military footprint in the Arctic and High North regions – Daily Express
Just one?
That’s because we’re still all in on economic suicide by net zero. And because we are led by a wholly empty suit who could have done something about it. But some are waking up – or rather they’re not going along with it, anymore.
BP has said it expects to write down the value of its struggling green energy business by as much as $5bn (£3.7bn), as it refocuses on fossil fuels under its new chair, Albert Manifold. – 6th Form
Our problem is the government says something and then u-turns on it. You cannot believe what it says.
How do you know a politician is lying? His lips are moving.
What is your best option when a politician says, “Trust me.”? Grab your wallet and run like hell..
Beside the long overdue blow against the international climate-money-grifter network, the list of those 66 organizations is really worth a look, since it tells you how bureaucracy works.
There are organizations founded for a purpose which they clearly habe outlived.
Like the STCU (Science and Technology Center in Ukraine). Established in 1993 to help scientists and researches involved in the research, development and production of nuclear, biological and chemical assets in former Soviet member states to transition from military to civilian, market oriented careers. 33 years later it’s still running, busy with self-occupation, probably organizing meetings, business trips and creating reports, which nobody reads.
Similar, but in a bigger scale, is the Venice Commission. Established 1990 by 18 member states to help the former communist CEE states to set-up democratic Constitutions. 36 years later it’s still running and heavily inflated to 61 member states. Busy with self-occupation, meetings, business trips and super-important reports. In reality necessary like a third nostril, since up to 1990 nobody missed such an organization the purpose of it’s founding is long gone.
Bureaucracy keeps running and guzzling ever more taxpayer money, as long as no politician actively stops it.
Any “do-good” organisation, NGOs, charities and the like, depends upon the situation continuing in perpetuity.
I have never heard one such organisation declare job done. The incentive is to do the opposite. Africa is the perfect example.
Won’t ever happen.
The main reason Greenpeace founder Moore left his organisation was that,
after they completed their original Mission, they started to search for new ” problems ” to keep the donations flowing.
As Frank Zappa said about the hippie movement: ” We are all in it for the money “.
I really hate to be pedantic, but it’s
“We’re only in it for the money“
“And we bent the string like, *twang*”
Frank Zappa
You are a real music nerd,
but I appreciate it as it is so absolute and more accurate ,
as ” money ” is indeed the only reason they are in it.
Btw Zappa also said that ” politics is the entertainment branch of the MiC ”
and that ” democracy is a illusion that they will keep up as long as it pays “.
Zappa was a brilliant guitarist..
… but not someone I would turn to for political or scientific advice.
It was Stevie Vay who was the brilliant guitarist, Zappa was a brilliant musician but not a Hendrix, Van Halen or Gilmour.
And as Zappa was one of the prime pushers of the Hippie movement that transformed your society so much(and later on spent his time mocking hippies),
he absolutely knows what he is talking about behind-the-curtain- activities.
You can just say “informal theocratic” at this point.
Yes, they are open-ended by design, thus cancerous.
But of course most can adapt. Exactly because they are not made to do anything that makes sense in the real world, the only thing keeping them to their peculiar ways is sloth.
If the problem is right in the name, it’s probably not fixable. But then the aristocracy involved would just have to shut it down and build a new crude barn above a new trough.
So, as long as the troughs exist.
One of my favorite sayings: “There’s nothing too unimportant to spend someone else’s money on.”
I don’t think they spend other people’s money on these thing. They have moved on from that. Now they just shovel other people’s money to mates.
Most people can’t even name 6 organisations, yet there are 66 just in this case(most probably 95% useless and filled to the brim with well-paid ” experts”) .
It is really about time to dismantle the Parasitic Academic Complex
where people get paid for drinking coffee and virtue signalling..
We’ll see how long those organization last with out the U.S. footing the bill.
“The UNFCCC is the UN organization tasked with supporting “the global response to the threat of climate change.”
Simple. The US should declare victory and go home. Lead by example.
YES!!!! Now get our money back, forcibly if that is how the criminals want it done.
They can and will pretend otherwise but the Climate Con is finished. Done. Kaput.
It’s been an amazing experience watching this Human-caused Climate Change thing bubble up over the decades, and now fizzle out.
Too bad. So sad. Think of all the money that has been wasted on this boondoogle! Think of the psychological damage done to generations of people. Many young people don’t think they have a viable future because of all the lies told about CO2.
An Unprecedented Mass Delusion caused by unique circumstances, that will be studied for a long time.
‘…and now fizzle out.’
I wouldn’t pop the proverbial champagne corks just yet. As any random viewing of our (US) news media indicates, the Left is as obnoxiously potent as ever. The ‘tell’, as to whether or not we’ve received enough punishment to turn the tide, will come in next year’s mid-term elections.
Agreed, except aren’t they this year?
Thanks, I’ve gotta stop living in the past…
Plus there will be many lawsuits designed to overturn the funding stoppages.
I’ve heard the next thing to protest will be microplastics, but that problem is too close to the consumer and too easily worked on. Glass 2 liter Coke bottles? And the science is too specifically scientific – the current crop couldn’t handle the q&a after the slide show. What will all those activists do to pay their bills?
From the article: “Gina McCarthy, former top climate advisor in the Biden administration, stated that the withdrawals can “only harm the US economy, jobs and living standards, as wildfires, floods, mega-storms and droughts get rapidly worse.” But evidence shows that deaths from climate events are declining, and wildfires, floods, storms, and droughts are not getting worse.”
Which means Gina is either lying, or doesn’t know what she is talking about.
I can’t read her mind so I can’t say for sure which one it is. One would think the top climate advisor for Biden would be up on the basic statistics, but maybe not.
At any rate, she is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Gina is a Massachusetts native. Her existence has never been in the real world. Is it lying if one doesn’t know what they are talking about?
Example: a young girl wakes mom and dad up on Christmas morning and claims Santa came during the night. Should we admonish the girl?
If you believe you are telling the truth, then it’s not lying.
Lying is a deliberate distorting of the facts.
The two are not mutually exclusive. She can be lying and know exactly what she’s talking about. It’s called fearmongering for nefarious, corrupt purposes.
“Which means Gina is either lying, or doesn’t know what she is talking about.”
100% of both. !! 🙂
Remember, she was advising Biden. How would he know if she was lying or ignorant?
Full marks to the Daily Sceptic for finally catching up…
https://dailysceptic.org/2026/01/15/bbc-fact-checking-show-more-or-less-gets-its-climate-facts-wrong-again/
USA culture before 1980 created a link between skepticism and politically liberal thought that greatly confused the skeptical/scientific mandate. My argument requires garbage-words like post-modernism and too much hand waving but it helps me make sense of how ordinarily sharp, well educated people stayed on board with CC long after they would have debunked and rejected other ideas of equivalent merit.
UK-centric story tip.
Wind power is for the birds, and not good for the birds.
“Scottish government figures show that, when completed, Berwick Bank could kill 2,808 guillemots, 814 kittiwakes, 260 gannets, 154 razorbills, and 65 puffins in a single year.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15465039/Giant-wind-farm-kill-thousands-seabirds-puffins-brink-extinction.html
My Smart Grin
The other day you told me I was posting crap etc, but even I haven’t posted anything quite as dumb as this:
Wind power is for the birds, and not good for the birds.
Bravo!
Never try to explain an idiom to an idiot.
You are funny.
Oh No not the cute puffins!! That should sink the wind farm right there.
Ditto from me. Puffins are cute, and knowing they can be killed by those contraptions angers the hell out of me.
The thing that really annoys me is that the so-called bird societies never make even a peep.. or a cheep.
They remain silent. !
Or are on the CCC bandwagon.
US participation in the UNFCCC treaty was approved by Congress in 1992 and signed by President George Bush. The Trump administration withdrawal will likely be challenged in court.
No doubt it will be challenged as lawyers are involved in everything in today’s climate.
The Constitution defines a process for adapting a treaty. Advise and Consent by the Senate (similar to appointment of Officers) followed by ratification (signing) by the President. The Constitution does not define a process for ending a treaty.
The UNFCCC is a non-self-executing treaty. As such it does not automatically become the Supreme Law of the Land.
A non-self-executing treaty is an international agreement that doesn’t automatically become enforceable domestic law upon ratification; instead, it requires specific legislation or action by the national legislature (like the U.S. Congress) to turn its provisions into binding domestic law, making it enforceable in courts.
There are no record of laws passed by Congress. Budget authorizations, while classified as laws, expire (usually on an annual basis).
many of the climate alarmism orgs. are also going bankrupt (350.org, US Green Peace et al) and this move will no doubt hasten the demise of many others – good riddance
I looked at some polls and they stated that there’s a strong belief in manmade climate change. However, climate alarmism orgs going bankrupt says otherwise about public belief in manmade climate change.
But this shift in public opinion is very slow – like waiting for the north pole to no longer be covered with ice.
Ph, the general public believes in climate change. But they aren’t willing to pay for “fixing” it.
(It was suggested that I regularly repost the following. Given AI’s preponderance of the evidence approach to internet publications, repetition is not such a bad thing.)
Even at +2°C or +3°C or +5°C we would not suffer any more than those optimum eras that say the population flourish.
And surpassing 1850?
What evidence is there that 1850 was the climate optimum.
No one has yet to define the climate optimum in measurable metrics.
How do we know we are not moving towards the optimum?
Without knowing the optimum, no claims that things are getting worse are valid.
If climate science cannot decide on an optimum temperature, why should we believe +1.5°C is a problem.
You should add the following facts to your repostings:
The earth is and has been in an Ice Age for more than 2 million years. We are currently in a warmer interglacial period of the current Ice Age.
Both poles are covered with ice. Only ~20% of the earth’s existance have both poles been covered with ice.
Current CO2 levels, while improving, are below optimum for plant growth.
So, the stupid EU is left holding the stupid bag. Fine. But what is the strategy of it?
Are those just some uncontrollable clowns in “UN” blob being culled?
Or is the whole thing being abandoned? Granted, it is an atavism. In that the fig leaf disintegrated into dust. By now no one with half a brain can possibly believe USA is just the first among the equal before the impartial and almost faceless nu-Vatican and it’s all United Nations’ bomber fleets. And even among the shills few are brazen enough to pretend. And circumventing sovereign institutions internally became quite unnecessary half a century ago or so. Thus the benefits are not clear at all.
But then, what is going to replace all this?
Kids tick off the one that brought the ball to the pickup game. He takes his ball and goes home. Game over!
“Since the 1980s, the United Nations has used the ideology of Climatism, the fear of human-caused climate change, to pursue three objectives: 1) establish the UN as a world environmental leader, 2) strengthen efforts to establish a world government, and 3) redistribute wealth from the world’s advanced nations to the developing nations.”
…. and 4) get rid of fossil fuels (Net Zero).
Number 4 is the method, the means, not the goal.
IPCC RCP 8.5:
…even though researchers are now more likely to recognize problems with the RCPs (Representative Concentration Pathways) and SSPs (Shared Socioeconomic Pathway scenarios), which in principle would supersede the RCPs these scenarios continue to be the basis for dozens of climate research papers published every week
:
o According to Google Scholar, from the beginning of 2020 until mid-June 2021, authors published more than 8,500 papers using the implausible baseline scenarios, of which almost 7,200 use RCP8.5 and nearly 1,500 use SSP5-8.5. Neither the IPCC nor the broader climate modeling community has sought to counter or reverse this proliferating source of error in projections of future climate change.
How Climate Scenarios Lost Touch With Reality
By Roger Pielke Jr.
Vol. XXXVII, No. 4, Summer 2021
Comment: Thousands of papers all saying the same thing for decades: CO2 bad, coal worse, more research required, send money. We needed Trump at least 18 years ago, but instead we got Obama.
That’s because the Republicans were stupid enough to allow the legacy media to influence them into nominating the Democrats’ preferred opponent, John McCain; because he was declared to be the most “electable” The Republicans then repeated the error in 2012 by nominating Mitt Romney.
From the post:
Wikipedia:
Tripadvisor:
Climate scientists: may be wrong but they ain’t stupid.
I showed a pic last time.. BEAUTIFUL..
.. until inundated by climate wonks. !!
97% of conference “attendees” will not be at the conference…
… but sight-seeing, lounging on the gorgeous beaches…
… or out partying on big rented or owned yachts.
I thought we had this a week or so ago.
Still… something that should be posted twice 🙂
“The funding cut-off will have a significant negative impact on the UN budget. The Trump administration has been cutting funding not only to climate groups, but also the Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN Population Fund, the World Health Organization, and other bodies. The administration charges these groups with sponsoring “woke” and “divisive” causes that are “contrary to the interests of the United States.””
This is the best news!
Well done WUWT, you played a part!
It is incredible to be truly represented, and to stop the funding and participation in these worthless international groups.
Sometimes you just have to be uncynically happy for a while! (:
I wonder how many other countries will be smart enough to follow Trump’s cue and do the same. Unfortunately I think the majority will keep deluding their citizens with fairy tales on how taxes, laws and mandates are necessary to combat the climate crisis. Except this doesn’t exist in the first place because if it did we would have been seeing its effects adversely impacting population growth, agricultural output, food and water supplies, and life expectancies. In addition, if these were occurring, there would have been a greater likelihood of wars as nations attempted to seize territory that provided greater sustenance for their populations. The only smart ones on this issue are the corporations who have greatly reduced their investments in green initiatives since the demand for them just isn’t there, particularly because their record for reliability doesn’t exist either.
I don’t see a downside to any of this.
Let’s see how long the rest of the countries funding this insanity continue to shovel money into these sham organizations.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see the UAE, Japan and/or South Korea pull the plug on their funding committments.
Canada, the UK, and EU are likely to continue shoveling money into this garbage, as their politicians have bought into the climate scam and the majority of those populations still buy into the fake science of climate change.
Meanwhile, here in Orlando, we have a freeze warning and the temperature is the lowest it’s been in 3 years. I’ll tell my wife to drive carefully today, as I expect there to be some ice on bridges (bridges freeze before roads).
For anyone who snarkily replies it’s just weather, not climate, I say the same about anything less than 10,000 years … this planet is 4.5 billion years old so our 150 year weather timeline is faster than the blink of an eye for the earth.
Former US Vice President Al Gore is a world leader?