[President Donald Trump signed an action on the first day of his second term to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, an international climate change treaty signed by nearly 200 countries to limit global warming. The stakes could not be higher for the planet and humanity’s ability to adapt to the changing climate and the increasing cost of climate-related disasters.
The planet crossed a consequential threshold in 2024, 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming, which dates back to the day the Paris Agreement was adopted. In 2015, more than 190 countries gathered at a United Nations climate summit in Paris and approved the Paris Agreement, aiming to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, but preferably to 1.5 degrees.
Since then, climate change has accelerated, and the planet is warming at a pace even scientists didn’t predict. Evidence has grown in recent years that nature and humanity’s ability to adapt to global warming will drop significantly if the planet experiences sustained warming above 1.5 degrees.
The Paris Agreement is non-binding, and countries set their own pollution goals and methods to meet them. The Biden administration submitted a new, ambitious goal in December 2024, pledging to cut climate pollution by up to 66% below 2005 levels by 2035.
Trump announced his intent to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement in 2017, and it was formalized in November 2020, a day after the presidential election that Biden won. However, the next day, Biden announced his intent to reenter the Paris Agreement.
On the first day of Trump’s second term, Trump ordered the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement again, seeking to increase US production of fossil fuels. The “Project 2025” document from the Heritage Foundation recommends Trump fully exit the overarching United Nations treaty that governs the agreement, which would rock international climate negotiations and make it harder for a future administration to re-enter.
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