Executive Disorder – The United States officially turn their back on international climate governance

Today, 20 January 2026, marks not only the first anniversary of the second inauguration of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States of America, but also – and as an immediate consequence of the former event – the formal entry into force of the United States’ exit from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Notwithstanding this due date, the US had already passed on sending a delegation to the 2025 UN climate change conference that convened in Brazil in November.

In his most recent flurry of executive orders, the President additionally effected the US’ withdrawal from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Now what? Climate change will not stop in its tracks, because the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases decides to ignore it. Neither will international climate governance, because one – albeit major – party decides to disengage from its international foundations. Does that mean that the decision of the White House administration to shun multilateral cooperation on all things climate can be simply shrugged off? Hardly so.

For starters, the comprehensive withdrawal from the UN climate change regime serves another profound blow to the beleaguered notion of multilateralism as was immediately emphasized by Germany’s minister for economic cooperation and development Reem Alabali Radovan, among others. More specifically, the executive order weakens two central pillars of the international climate governance architecture, namely its international legal basis, the Framework Convention that was universally agreed in 1992, and its preeminent science-policy interface, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Most palpably, it depletes vital resources from international climate policy by discontinuing three decades of US climate policy experience as well as substantial contributions to international climate finance. The move thus complements a series of interventions that already hamper international climate governance indirectly: cutting climate research funding, shutting off essential data-generating infrastructures like NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatories, undermining quintessential assessment and review processes by blocking US scientists from travelling to pertinent conferences abroad.

Yet, all of the above merely signifies a case of form following function in light of the US administration’s ongoing obstruction of climate policy at domestic and international levels. In that sense, the executive move was consequential rather than breaking news, much less a big surprise. Would the President dare? Yes, and – given his track record hitherto – why wouldn’t he? Indeed, it appears more surprising what took him so long after he had already effected – for the second time after 2017 – the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement immediately upon his return to the Oval Office.

It would be self-deception to sugarcoat the single most powerful nation’s opting out of its responsibility for global warming and its worldwide consequences as a blessing in disguise. Yet, there is no point to despair over it either. Proceedings at the recent UN climate conference in Belém, Brazil, were hardly hindered by the unprecedented absence of a US delegation. As a further case in point, institutions and policies under the UNFCCC’s sibling, the Convention on Biological Diversity, have evolved constructively, if slowly, without the US ever joining it in the first place. In fact, it never needed to accommodate the notorious intransigence of US negotiators that shaped international climate policy over the past thirty years and across a range of different US administrations.

Still, the withdrawal of the US does not help but hinder international climate governance, even if it doesn’t prompt other parties to follow – a plausible risk feared by many observers, yet without tangible indications so far. After all, the USA represents the biggest historical and second biggest current emitter of global greenhouse gases, and the still most powerful and therefore most capable economy by any measure. Moreover, it is the home to the preeminent brain trusts in global climate science, amongst other things. Its absence from international climate governance alone will inevitably undermine the credibility of pertinent processes and the legitimacy of corresponding institutions.

In essence, the UNFCCC’s asset of universal membership is null and void without the US. Thus far, it had distinguished the UNFCCC from most international agreements over the past three decades, and it adequately reflected the genuinely global challenge that avoiding dangerous climate change – the central objective of the UNFCCC – amounts to. Resulting damages will be hard to repair or reverse, even if a future US government would be determined to doing so. To re-join the UNFCCC, in particular, would depend on Congress legislation. That is to say, it cannot be undone by an executive order of another president. What was a unanimous bipartisan decision back in 1992 would be a very long shot in view of the current polarisation of US domestic politics.

In the medium-term, the setback for global climate science and research may be even more damaging than with regard to international climate law and policy. Even if the international scientific community were to succeed in facilitating participation of and exchange with US-based scientists and in ramping up its own research capacity and knowledge infrastructure, the systematic unravelling of US climate science will be hard to compensate. Budget cuts and outright obstructionism, like abandoning crucial satellites or strong-arming publicly funded scientists to disengage with climate-centred knowledge networks and research agendas, will inevitably affect academic output and slow-down scientific progress. Not to mention a void of essential official data that will result simply from the US’ refusal to report on its domestic emissions and other relevant activities as it would under the UNFCCC. The effects for the global state of knowledge and understanding around climate change will at least be dilatory and probably long lasting, if not altogether irreversible.

Ironically, even cynically, a ray of hope lies in the detrimental effects that the United States’ executive disorder may entail for the US economy. Eventually, it may dawn on the American electorate that the White House’s actions not only frustrate international partners, but also harm businesses and consumers domestically. Against all geopolitical odds, the low carbon transformation of the global economy is well under way, driven not least by the dynamic growth of renewable energies and green technologies and in most parts of the world. To be sure, the fossil fuel-based economic model is very much alive. Yet, it is increasingly kicking in the defensive. Opting out of the unfolding transformation betrays the very competitiveness that is so often touted as motivation and legitimization of unilateral action that seeks to turn back time. Hence, the UNFCCC’s Executive Secretary Simon Stiell is not merely whistling in the woods when he suggests that turning one’s back on international climate governance is tantamount to a “colossal own goal” in sports: ultimately self-defeating.

For the very same reasons the EU is well advised to walk its talk as it claims to keep pursuing its climate policy agenda domestically and through continued “international cooperation on climate issues”, with its climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra highlighting interlinkages to the EU’s competitiveness and independence. Encouragingly, it also pledges to “remain unequivocally committed to international climate research”. In light of the above, this will be especially important. The faster the EU, and likeminded international partners, will find effective ways to curb the impacts of US obstruction on international climate research and to accommodate for the expertise of US-based scientists and research, the better. Upping its game accordingly will position the EU to help prevent a progressive meltdown of international climate governance and to advance a more ambitious and effective implementation of the Paris Agreement with or without the US.