Withdrawal From the Paris Agreement

Introduction

The signing of the Paris Agreement in December 2015 marked a breakthrough in climate diplomacy. After numerous prior failed attempts, 194 countries agreed to work to reduce the emission of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide and methane that are changing the climate. The United States, the world’s second largest emitter annually and the largest emitter cumulatively, was among the countries that signed the Paris Agreement, which is also known as the Paris climate accord. On June 1, 2017, President Donald Trump, who had come to office five months earlier, fulfilled a campaign promise by announcing that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement. He argued that the agreement would hamstring the U.S. energy industry and cost millions of American jobs while doing little to limit climate change, something he had repeatedly called a “hoax.” No other country followed Trump’s lead, leaving the United States diplomatically isolated as average global temperatures climbed and extreme weather events multiplied. SHAFR historians ranked the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement as the seventh-worst U.S. foreign policy decision.

Multilateral efforts to understand and respond to possible climate change began in the 1980s. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created in 1988 and tasked with deepening scientific understanding of possible climate change. Four years later, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted. It was charged with limiting greenhouse gas concentrations “at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human induced) interference with the climate system.”

In December 1997, the countries that were parties to the UNFCCC negotiated the Kyoto Protocol. It was based on the principle that wealthy industrialized nations had contributed disproportionately to rising greenhouse gases. As a result, by ratifying the treaty, these countries agreed to take on a legal obligation to cut their emissions. The treaty did not, however, impose a similar obligation on developing countries such as China and India. Indeed, they were free to increase their emissions. The differential treatment of wealthy and developing countries reflected the view that poorer countries, which had generated far fewer emissions historically than wealthy countries, had a right to develop their economies just as wealthy countries had.

President Bill Clinton signed the protocol on behalf of the United States in November 1998. However, he did not submit it for Senate approval because it had no chance of passing. The Senate had previously voted 95 to 0 in favor of a resolution opposing any climate deal that did not require developing countries to reduce emissions. As a result, the United States did not become a member of the Kyoto Protocol. In 2001, President George W. Bush formally withdrew the U.S. signature on the treaty, citing among other reasons the potential “serious harm to the U.S. economy” and “our workers” that would come from adhering to it.

Delegates from nearly two hundred countries convened in Paris in late November 2015 for two weeks of negotiations. Their discussions led to a joint pledge to work to limit the increase in the average global temperature by 2100 to below 3.6°F (2°C) compared to pre-industrial levels, with the goal being to limit the increase to 2.7°F (1.5°C). Countries also agreed to use reforestation and other techniques to capture greenhouse gases and to pursue efforts to adapt to climate change.

The Paris Agreement differed from the Kyoto Protocol in two critical respects. First, it asked all countries to work to reduce emissions, rather than placing the responsibility solely on wealthy nations. Second, it did not impose legally binding reduction requirements on countries; instead, it allowed each country to set its own so-called nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to emission reductions. The agreement would enter into force once fifty-five countries that produced at least 55 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions formally approved the accord.

The decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement left the United States isolated on global climate diplomacy. No other country followed Trump’s lead. Indeed, many countries followed through on their commitment to curb emissions. The UN Environment Programme concluded in 2023 that the rate of the increase in global emissions had slowed substantially after the Paris Agreement went into effect. The ultimate success of the Paris Agreement in reducing emissions and achieving its core objective of limiting the increase in the average global temperature by 2100 to below 3.6°F (2°C) will depend on more than just whether the United States participates. But the U.S. departure made it easier for other countries to relax their own efforts to curb emissions. The withdrawal also fueled doubts about reliability of the United States as a partner in addressing global challenges. Meanwhile, global average temperatures continued to rise, and the number of extreme weather events multiplied; 2024 was the hottest year on record.