Trump withdraws from UN Framework Convention; ends illusion we’ll always have Paris

From the COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

Marlo Lewis, Jr.

President Trump is withdrawing the United States from 66 intergovernmental organizations he has determined are “contrary to the interests of the United States.” This is a big deal, especially the president’s decision to withdraw from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the foundational treaty for global climate policy.

This action has been almost a year in the making. Executive Order 14199, issued on February 4, 2025, directed the Secretary of State to “conduct a review of all international intergovernmental organizations of which the United States is a member and provides any type of funding or other support, and all conventions and treaties to which the United States is a party, to determine which organizations, conventions, and treaties are contrary to the interests of the United States and whether such organizations, conventions, or treaties can be reformed.” Upon completion of the review, the Secretary “shall provide recommendations as to whether the United States should withdraw from any such organizations, conventions, or treaties.”

Trump’s January 7, 2026 presidential memorandum directs executive branch agencies, “to the extent permitted by law,” to cease participation in or funding 66 named intergovernmental entities “as soon as possible.”

Although not spelled out in the memorandum, the big picture is clear. Trump aims to free the US from international commitments that hobble or imperil its pursuit of affordable energy, economic growth, and “energy dominance,” a top priority of his National Security Strategy. He has already taken bold steps to free the US energy sector and economy from climate-themed overregulation. Exiting the UN-centric world of climate diplomacy should make those achievements more durable.   

Trump’s decision to withdraw from the UNFCCC is especially gratifying to CEI. In the early 1990s, CEI Founder Fred Smith led a coalition that urged the George H.W. Bush administration not to ratify the purportedly “voluntary” UNFCCC. Ratification, they warned, would legitimize and entangle the US in a global pressure campaign for energy-suppression policies detrimental to American liberty and prosperity. They were right.

The UNFCCC became the parent treaty for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and then the 2015 Paris Agreement. Paris aims to mitigate climate change by “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C.” However, as energy analyst Stephen Eule observes, the Agreement does not specify the quantity of emission reductions needed to meet those targets.

That important detail was still largely unknown in November 2016, when the Paris Agreement entered into force. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) first published an official estimate in its October 2018 Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C. Global carbon dioxide emissions would have to “decline by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero by around 2050.”

Thus, the Paris Agreement both concealed and launched the infeasible and unaffordable net-zero agenda that today contributes to rising US electricity prices (especially in blue states) and risks deindustrialization in EU nations as manufacturers consider shifting operations to countries with lower energy costs.

Recognizing the deep incompatibility between Paris and US energy dominance, Trump withdrew from the Agreement in June 2017 and again in January 2025. A question that remained unanswered each time was how Trump could prevent a future president from rejoining the global carbon-haters club.

Trump’s challenge was formidable. The Obama administration denied that Paris was a “treaty” for purposes of Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution. Under that provision, the president “shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.” The Obama administration therefore claimed Paris was an “executive agreement” — a pact that the president can “accept” (i.e., ratify) acting on his sole authority as chief diplomat. The Biden administration took the same position when rejoining Paris.

Whether or not that was their sincere belief, the Obama and Biden administrations must have known there was no chance “two thirds of the Senators present” would vote in favor of ratifying a new global climate treaty. Hence, evading the Article II, Section 2 procedure was the only way for a US president to join or rejoin the Agreement.

The Senate’s shared role in treaty making is a well-known example of the Constitution’s checks and balances but its special character is often overlooked. Under Article II, Section 2, the president may appoint ambassadors, other officers of the United States, and even Supreme Court justices with the concurrence of a simple majority in the Senate. Adopting a treaty requires a much higher level of consent, one reflecting a broad national consensus. That is fitting, given the “delicate and momentous” nature of the “interests” at risk.

President Obama called Paris “the most ambitious climate change agreement in history.” In fact, Paris is the most ambitious environmental treaty in history. It aims at nothing less than a global transformation of national energy policies, markets, and infrastructure, ostensibly to save the planet. As noted, Paris midwifed the net-zero agenda, which a recent study estimates could impose costs of up to £7.6 trillion ($10.2 trillion) in Great Britain alone.

The bottom line is that Paris should have been reviewed under the Article II, Section 2 procedure due to its potential costs and risks to the nation, dependence on subsequent legislation by Congress, potential to affect state laws, past US practice regarding similar agreements, duration, and other common-sense criteria.  

Responding to such criticism, Obama climate adviser Brian Deese reportedly told The Washington Times that Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush “joined important international environmental agreements by using executive agreements.” Deese did not cite any examples. I checked the State Department’s Treaties and Other International Acts Series database. It does not support Deese’s claim.

With the advice and consent of the Senate, President Reagan ratified the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, on April 5, 1988. He did not join any environmental pacts as executive agreements.

The George W. Bush administration negotiated 15 environmental executive agreements, but none entailed commitments or risks to the nation. Unlike Paris, all were clearly authorized either by Congress, other treaties, or the president’s inherent powers as chief executive or Commander in Chief.

CEI has long advocated that President Trump ask the Senate to debate and vote on ratification of the Paris Agreement and then, when the ratification vote fails, declare the US is not now and has never been a party to the Agreement.

However, we also acknowledged that presidential withdrawal from the UNFCCC is a quicker and more comprehensive remedy, as the Paris Agreement itself implicitly confirms. Paris Article 28 states: “Any Party that withdraws from the Convention [UNFCCC] shall be considered as also having withdrawn from this Agreement.”

In short, by withdrawing from the UNFCCC, Trump has blocked future presidents from attempting to rejoin Paris via executive agreement. They could rejoin Paris on their sole authority only if they first obtain the Senate’s consent to re-ratify the UNFCCC. That would be hard.

After all, we are a long way from 1992, when the Senate, having little awareness of the economic, humanitarian, and security risks of regulatory climate policy, voted overwhelmingly in favor of ratifying the UNFCCC. Senators supporting US energy dominance today should have no difficulty understanding they must keep America out of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement.

Music man Paul Simon sang of “50 ways to leave your lover.” Trump has not found 50 ways to leave Paris, but he seems to have found three.

As indicated above, on January 20, 2025, President Trump directed the ambassador to the UN to “immediately submit formal written notification of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.” That’s the first way. To recap, Trump’s January 7, 2026 memorandum directed the State Department to withdraw from the UNFCCC, the Paris parent treaty. That’s the second way.

Here’s the third way. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to finalize a decision to repeal the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding soon. That finding ostensibly required the EPA to establish first-ever greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for new motor vehicles. It soon morphed into a generic scientific justification for other GHG regulatory initiatives, including the Obama administration’s 2015 Clean Power Plan, which was a central pillar of President Obama’s emission-reduction pledge under the Paris Agreement.

If courts uphold the EPA’s repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding, a future administration could not make credible emission-reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement. More precisely, it could not do so without first adopting and successfully defending a new endangerment finding.

If all goes according to Trump’s plan, America will not just be out of Paris, we will be gone, gone, gone.