<
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/07/trump-international-groups-un>
"Donald Trump has sparked outrage by announcing the US will exit the
foundational international agreement to address the climate crisis, cementing
the US’s utter isolation from the global effort to confront dangerously
escalating temperatures.
In a presidential memorandum issued on Wednesday, Trump withdrew from the
UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), along with 65 other
organizations, agencies and commissions, calling them “contrary to the
interests of the United States”.
The UNFCCC treaty forms the bedrock of international cooperation to deal with
the climate crisis and has been agreed to by every country in the world since
its inception 34 years ago. The US Senate ratified the treaty in October 1992.
Trump has, however, routinely ridiculed climate science as a “scam” and a
“hoax” and has actively hobbled clean energy projects and other climate
policies as president, attempting to force the US and other countries to stay
wedded to the fossil fuels that are driving disastrous heatwaves, storms,
droughts and conflicts that imperils billions of people around the world.
Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief and executive secretary of the UNFCCC,
described the move as a “colossal own goal”. He said: “While all other nations
are stepping forward together, this latest step back from global leadership,
climate cooperation and science can only harm the US economy, jobs and living
standards, as wildfires, floods, mega-storms and droughts get rapidly worse. It
is a colossal own goal which will leave the US less secure and less
prosperous.”
“This is a shortsighted, embarrassing and foolish decision,” said Gina
McCarthy, who was a top climate adviser to Joe Biden’s White House.
“As the only country in the world not a part of the UNFCCC treaty, the Trump
administration is throwing away decades of US climate change leadership and
global collaboration. This administration is forfeiting our country’s ability
to influence trillions of dollars in investments, policies and decisions that
would have advanced our economy and protected us from costly disasters wreaking
havoc on our country.”
Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Trump’s
decision to exit the UNFCCC is an “unforced error” and “self-defeating” as it
will further hamper the US’s ability to compete with China, which is
increasingly dominant in the world’s burgeoning clean energy technology
industries.
“While the Trump administration is abdicating the United States of America’s
global leadership, the rest of the world is continuing to shift to cleaner
power sources and take climate action,” Bapna said.
“The Trump administration is ceding the trillions of dollars in investment that
the clean energy transition brings to nations willing to follow the science and
embrace the cleanest, cheapest sources of energy.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
