U.S. withdraws from UNFCCC, the climate framework it helped create

Time reported that on Wednesday night, President Trump announced that the U.S. would be withdrawing from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the landmark treaty that sets a legal framework for international negotiations to address climate change. The move follows a State Department review of U.S.

involvement in international organisations last February and is part of a wider withdrawal that has removed the United States from 66 international organisations, including 31 United Nations entities; other groups cited include U.N. Oceans, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and the International Renewable Energy Agency.

The U.S. has become the first country to turn its back on the framework it helped create in the early 1990s. "It's a terrible signal of the U.S.’s commitment to international climate action," said Jake Schmidt of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Max Holmes of the Woodwell Climate Research Center added that "the federal government, over the last 11 plus months, has already done everything they can to put the brakes on energy transition and climate action." Schmidt also warned the decision risks the U.S.

Key Topics

Politics, Unfccc, President Trump, Simon Stiell, Inflation Reduction Act