Donald Trump doesn’t like the UN’s Climate Treaty. And a bunch of other things. Photo: Library of Congress
The Trump administration has withdrawn the United States from the UN climate treaty. On Wednesday, a memorandum was signed pulling the country from the climate treaty as well as 65 other global bodies, many of which are also tied to the UN.
“These withdrawals will end American taxpayer funding and involvement in entities that advance globalist agendas over U.S. priorities,” the White House said in a statement.
The Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — the official title of the climate treaty — was adopted at the United Nations Headquarters in 1992. The ultimate goal of the treaty is to prevent “‘dangerous’ human interference with the climate system.”
It seems fairly obvious (obvious, that is, if you believe the vast majority of researchers who’ve been studying this kind of thing for years instead of believing a random Facebook post your uncle shared) that things have gotten away from us. We’re rapidly destroying our planet as we hunt for more and more of everything. The places we love like the mountains and the ocean aren’t being protected as well as they should be. It’s been proven once in recent memory that humans are capable of working together to solve a global issue — that pesky hole in the ozone layer and the subsequent Montreal Protocol that phased out CFCs — but this whole climate change thing is proving to be a little less galvanizing.
A White House memorandum described the organizations it pulled the United States out of as “a waste of taxpayer dollars.” The memorandum went on to say that it decided to remove the U.S. from the groups because they “no longer serve American interests” and promote “ineffective or hostile agendas.”
“Consistent with Executive Order 14199 and pursuant to the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America,” Donald Trump wrote, “I hereby direct all executive departments and agencies (agencies) to take immediate steps to effectuate the withdrawal of the United States from the organizations listed in section two of this memorandum as soon as possible. For United Nations entities, withdrawal means ceasing participation in or funding to those entities to the extent permitted by law.”
Also of note is the fact that another group the Unites States isn’t participating in anymore is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is, as the BBC puts it, “the world’s leading authority on climate science that pulls together the most respected reports on the science of rising global temperatures.”
It will take about a year for all withdrawal to be completed, but the reality is that the U.S. hasn’t really been participating in the UN’s climate change panel for a long time. There’s still a chance that the move will be challenged in court, but if recent history is anything to judge by, that won’t amount to much. It’s also unclear whether the law would allow the United States to rejoin in the future.
Many world leaders aren’t exactly happy with the decision, saying that it would be a shot in the arm of global cooperation. EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said the UNFCCC, “underpins global climate action” and called the U.S. retreat “regrettable and unfortunate.”
