The United States has officially exited the Paris Agreement, the landmark 194-nation (formerly 195) pact committing countries to set national climate targets aimed at limiting global warming, with the U.S. notification of withdrawal formally taking effect on Wednesday.
The milestone makes the U.S. the only country to have left the Paris Agreement, and marks the second time that President Trump has pulled the U.S. out of the international climate accord, having done so late in his first term.
The U.S. returned to the Paris Agreement in early 2021, with President Biden signing an executive order to rejoin the accord on his first day in office.
The Paris Agreement is a multi-nation pact developed by parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to combat climate change. The agreement’s main goal is to limit the global temperature increase in this century to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and to work toward limiting the increase to 1.5°C.
Trump, who in a recent UN speech called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” has worked actively in his second term to undo the climate-focused actions of the prior administration, starting with an Executive Order on his first day in office to once again withdraw from the Paris Agreement, in addition to revisiting greenhouse gas regulations, cancelling billions in federal clean energy awards, and halting activity on all major U.S. offshore wind projects.
Most recently, earlier this month Trump announced plans to withdraw the U.S. from a wide range of major international climate, clean energy, and other global cooperation organizations, including the UNFCCC, which is the parent treaty to landmark climate agreements including the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.
Following the President’s Executive Order early last year, the UN issued a notification of the withdrawal of the U.S. from the agreement on January 27, 2025, with the withdrawal officially taking effect one year after.
The UNFCCC did not issue an official statement on Wednesday regarding the U.S.’ exit from the accord, but posted a message on its social media channels, stating:
“The Paris Agreement is the world’s shared framework to combat climate change and limit global temperature rise.
“At COP30 in Brazil, 194 countries representing billions of people reaffirmed their commitment to this vision and resolved to go further, faster, together.”
Following the President’s announced plans to withdraw from the agreement last year, the US Climate Alliance, a climate-focused group of 24 U.S. state governors, published a letter sent to the UNFCCC indicating that they plan to remain committed to the U.S.’ Paris Agreement goals, despite the upcoming exit from the accord.
Following the formal withdrawal on Wednesday, US Climate Alliance Co-Chair and California Governor Gavin Newsom said:
“As climate disasters cost Americans trillions, Trump’s answer is to wave the white flag. California won’t retreat. We’ll keep working with our partners around the world to cut pollution, create jobs, and lead the clean energy economy that the Trump administration is too weak to fight for.”
