Second US Withdrawal From Paris Agreement Would Undermine Global Efforts to Halt Climate Change, UN Chief Says

“It’s very important that the United States remain in the Paris Agreement, and more than remain in the Paris agreement, that the United States adopts the kind of policies that are necessary to make the 1.5 degrees still a realistic objective,” Guterres told the Guardian.

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The UN Secretary-General has warned of the potential repercussions of a Trump presidency on international climate targets and policies amid the possibility of a second US exit from the Paris accord.

Just months after taking office in 2017, former US president Donald Trump announced the country’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, a move that only took effect three years later owing to UN regulations.

The Paris deal was drafted in 2015 to strengthen the global response to the growing threat of climate change. It set out a framework for limiting global warming to below 1.5C or “well below 2C” above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. Beyond this limit, experts warn that critical tipping points will be breached, leading to devastating and potentially irreversible consequences for several vital Earth systems that sustain a hospitable planet.

In June, a Trump campaign spokesperson told Politico that Trump would yank the US out of the Paris deal for the second time if he wins the presidency again in November.

Speaking to the Guardian at last week’s COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, António Guterres said the progress on the Paris Agreement could suffer a major setback if the US were to leave the international treaty for a second time, after President Joe Biden rejoined it in 2020.

“The Paris agreement can survive, but people sometimes can lose important organs or lose the legs and survive. But we don’t want a crippled Paris agreement. We want a real Paris agreement,” Guterres said. “It’s very important that the United States remain in the Paris Agreement, and more than remain in the Paris agreement, that the United States adopts the kind of policies that are necessary to make the 1.5 degrees still a realistic objective.”

The Republican nominee has repeatedly denied climate change, calling if a “hoax,” and he has vowed to “drill, baby, drill” for more oil and gas.

Fossil fuels – natural gas, coal, and oil – are the single-largest source of global greenhouse gas emissions, the primary drivers of global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere and raising Earth’s surface temperature. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has urged countries to halt new gas and oil field projects, arguing that this is the only way to keep the 1.5C-compatible net-zero emissions scenario alive.

Trump has also hinted at his intention to scrap the most important climate laws passed during the Biden administration and undermine the powers of federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency if he wins the November election.

Speaking about California’s ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035 on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast last month, Trump said he would “terminate the mandate immediately.” The state-wide plan, one of the first such regulations in the world, was approved in 2022 to tackle air pollution from vehicles, a pressing issue in California.

“That would be done I would say in my first day, maybe two days,” he said.

In April, a former Trump White House official said that Trump would take a “hard-nosed look” at any outcome of the ongoing negotiations for a Global Plastic Treaty, scheduled to be finalized by the end of this year, and be “skeptical that the agreement reached was the best agreement that could have been reached.”

Featured image: Gage Skidmore/Flickr.

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