Global climate efforts hit as US pulls out from key bodies

The US withdrew from 66 international organisations and conventions on Wednesday, with its most significant exit, from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), likely to deal a crippling blow to global efforts to tackle the climate crisis.

- Jayashree Nandi

In a statement, the White House said these organisations and conventions do not “serve American interests” and “advance globalist agendas over US priorities”. Describing the money that goes into them as “a waste of taxpayer dollars”, the statement said that some of these also espouse “radical climate policies, global governance and ideological programs that conflict with US sovereignty and economic strength”.

Of the 66, around half are UN organisations. The areas where they work range from climate and the environment to labour and migration to trade and sexual violence. The Gurugramheadquartered International Solar Alliance is one of the organisations the US is exiting.

The US already exited the Paris Agreement (on climate) in 2025; the exit will take effect from January 27 this year. With Wednesday's move to exit the UNFCCC and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which seeks to provide the scientific basis for policy action against the climate crisis, the US is now out of the framework the world has used for decades to understand and combat the climate crisis.

UNFCCC was established in 1992 to provide a legal basis for climate talks. All COP meetings happen under its aegis.

The Paris Agreement of 2015 was the result of these discussions. Almost 200 countries have ratified the UNFCCC with the US being the first developed country to do so (after its senate approved it).

The US is the world's largest historical emitter of gases responsible for global warming.