UN climate chief says Trump scores 'own goal' with treaty retreat / Photo: TIMOTHY A. CLARY - AFP/File
UN climate chief says Trump scores 'own goal' with treaty retreat
The UN climate chief led a chorus of criticism Thursday over President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from a bedrock climate treaty, calling it a "colossal own goal" that will only harm his country.
Trump released a presidential memorandum Wednesday ordering the withdrawal from 66 global organizations and treaties -- roughly half affiliated with the United Nations -- for being "contrary to the interests of the United States."
Most notable among them is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which underpins all major international climate agreements.
UNFCCC executive secretary Simon Stiell said Trump's decision would "only harm the US economy, jobs and living standards."
"It is a colossal own goal which will leave the US less secure and less prosperous," Stiell said in a statement.
Critics warned that it will further isolate the country on the global stage, noting that the United States would be the only UN member that is not part of the treaty.
The move "is a strategic blunder that gives away American advantage for nothing in return," said David Widawsky, a director of the World Resources Institute think tank.
"The 30-year-old agreement is the foundation of international climate cooperation. Walking away doesn't just put America on the sidelines -- it takes the US out of the arena entirely," Widawsky said.
The treaty adopted in 1992 is a global pact by nations to cooperate to drive down planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
"The decision by the world's largest economy and second-largest emitter to retreat from it is regrettable and unfortunate," European Union climate chief Wopke Hoekstra said in social media post.
Trump has thrown the full weight of his domestic policy behind fossil fuels and derides climate science as a "hoax."
His administration sent no representative to the most recent UN climate summit in Brazil in November, which is held every year under the auspices of the UNFCCC.
- Fight looms -
The UNFCCC was adopted 34 years ago at the Rio Earth Summit and approved by the US Senate during George H.W. Bush's presidency.
The US Constitution allows presidents to enter treaties "provided two thirds of Senators present concur," but it is silent on the process for withdrawing from them -- a legal ambiguity that could invite court challenges.
Trump has already withdrawn from the landmark Paris climate accord since returning to office, just as he did during his first term from 2017–2021 in a move later reversed by his successor, Democratic president Joe Biden.
Exiting the UNFCCC could introduce legal uncertainty around any future US effort to rejoin.
Jean Su, a senior attorney for the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, told AFP: "Pulling out of the UNFCCC is a whole order of magnitude different from pulling out of the Paris Agreement."
"It's our contention that it's illegal for the President to unilaterally pull out of a treaty that required two thirds of the Senate vote," she continued. "We are looking at legal options to pursue that line of argument."
Stiell, however, said: "The doors remain open for the US to reenter in the future, as it has in the past with the Paris Agreement."
- 'Gift to China' -
California Governor Gavin Newsom, an outspoken critic of Trump who is widely seen as a presidential contender, said "our brainless president is surrendering America's leadership on the world stage and weakening our ability to compete in the economy of the future -- creating a leadership vacuum that China is already exploiting."
China is the world's biggest polluter, but it has also become the global leader in renewable energy.
The memo also directs the United States to withdraw from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body responsible for assessing climate science, alongside other climate-related organizations including the International Renewable Energy Agency.
The US Treasury Department announced Thursday that it was pulling out of the UN's Green Climate Fund, the world's largest multilateral climate fund.
"Our nation will no longer fund radical organizations like the GCF whose goals run contrary to the fact that affordable, reliable energy is fundamental to economic growth and poverty reduction," said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
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