U.S. to withdraw from U.N. climate treaty, administration says

The Trump administration said Wednesday that the United States was withdrawing from 66 international agreements, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, the treaty that sets a legal framework for international negotiations to address climate change.

Established in 1992, the UNFCCC provides the umbrella for annual talks aimed at slowing atmospheric warming caused principally by the burning of coal, oil and gas. Under the convention’s auspices, countries reached the 2015 Paris Agreement, which set nationally determined emissions targets.

The convention has an office in Bonn, Germany, a staff of around 450, and the United States customarily pays about 20 percent of its core budget; last year, after the Trump administration withdrew the U.S. contribution, the philanthropist and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg filled the gap.

Since 1992, 197 countries have ratified the convention, and the United States was the first industrialized country to join after Senate ratification. The decision makes the United States an outlier and, the article says, matters for America’s standing—especially in the eyes of vulnerable countries that note the United States has the largest share of cumulative climate pollution.

Key Topics

World, Unfccc, Paris Agreement, Bonn, Michael Bloomberg, Greenhouse Gas Emissions