President Trump Ignores Science, Makes Disgraceful Decision to Withdraw US from Paris Agreement

WASHINGTON (January 20, 2025)—As part of what is expected to be a spate of deeply anti-scientific and destructive executive orders released his first week in office, President Trump announced today that he would seek to remove the United States from the Paris Agreement—adopted by nearly 200 countries in 2015 with the aim to limit global climate change. United States withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement would take effect a year after submitting the required letter of intent and mark the second time the country has done so.

Pres. Trump’s announcement of his intention to take the United States out of the Paris Agreement comes as massive wildfires continue to rage in California and just weeks after U.S. and global scientific agencies confirmed the planet experienced its hottest year on record in 2024. Last year, the United States also endured at least 27 extreme weather and climate-related disasters that each reported damages of $1 billion or more, many of which were worsened by climate change.

Below is a statement by Dr. Rachel Cleetus, the policy director and lead economist for the Climate and Energy Program at UCS. She has attended the U.N.’s international climate talks and has partnered with the international community on climate and energy policies for about 20 years.

“Withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement is a travesty. Such a move is in clear defiance of scientific realities and shows an administration cruelly indifferent to the harsh climate change impacts that people in the United States and around the world are experiencing. Pulling out of the Paris Agreement is an abdication of responsibility and undermines the very global action that people at home and abroad desperately need.

“Regardless of politics, the scientific imperative to address the climate crisis remains clear and necessitates urgent actions from U.S. and global policymakers. Last year was the first time global average temperatures exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for an entire year. Unless world leaders act quickly, the planet is on track for up to a 3.1 degrees Celsius increase, which would be catastrophic. As the largest historical emitter of heat-trapping emissions, the United States has a responsibility to do its fair share to stave off the increasingly dire consequences of the climate crisis.

“Instead of seizing the opportunity to expand the economic and public health benefits of clean energy for people across the nation, while working together with the global community to solve this shared challenge, Pres. Trump is choosing to begin his term pandering to the fossil fuel industry and its allies. His disgraceful and destructive decision is an ominous harbinger of what people in the United States should expect from him and his anti-science cabinet hellbent on boosting fossil fuel industry profits at the expense of people and the planet. In addition to the obvious climate harms, such an extreme isolationist posture on a paramount issue of international diplomacy will have wider repercussions for the United States’ standing in the world and its ability to secure international cooperation on other issues of national importance.”

Additional Resources:

• A previous statement by UCS on the repercussions of a Trump presidency on global climate action.
• The latest UCS blogposts on actions taken or expected by the second Trump administration.