The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are among a total of 66 groups that will leave the US. It is believed that these measures are likely to reduce both the US role in addressing greenhouse gas emissions and the global influence of these entities.
Trump’s actions are in line with his domestic policy shifts aimed at removing curbs on pollution and fossil fuels, and follow a decision in January 2025 to begin a year-long process to quit the Paris Agreement, the binding 2015 accord to combat global warming. He made a similar decision during his first term.
The Trump administration is exiting institutions deemed “redundant in their size, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful and mismanaged,” and advancing agendas that run counter to those of the US, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
Leaving the UNFCCC would formally withdraw the US from the UN body that pushes countries to set increasingly ambitious targets for emissions reductions and coordinates annual global COP summits to promote action on areas such as decarbonization and climate finance. U.S. officials were absent from the most recent talks in Brazil last year.
“It’s a gift to China and a get-out-of-jail-free card for countries and polluters who want to avoid responsibility,” said John Kerry, a former U.S. secretary of state who was also the country’s top climate diplomat under President Joe Biden. “It’s another self-inflicted wound on the world stage.”
Leaving the UNFCCC would likely face a more complex task for any future government to rejoin these efforts. In 2021, Biden decided to rejoin the Paris pact immediately after his inauguration.
However, a return to the UNFCCC could be more challenging. Climate skeptics who have encouraged Trump to leave the UNFCCC have argued that once the US withdraws from the treaty, any bid to rejoin would have to be accompanied by another vote in the Senate, which would require a two-thirds supermajority. However, some legal experts have said a future president could simply rejoin the deal without Senate approval.
By leaving the IPCC, the U.S. “will no longer be able to guide the scientific assessments that governments around the world rely on,” although individual scientists may still be able to contribute, said Delta Merner, deputy director of the Climate Accountability Campaign at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Established in 1998 by the UN and the World Meteorological Organization, the IPCC is considered the crucial global authority on humanity’s contribution to global warming and has produced six flagship assessments that shape climate policymaking. It has traditionally relied heavily on US funding and expertise.
US involvement in the next major review, due in 2029, was already in question amid mass layoffs and program closures at some of the country’s top federal weather and climate agencies. Some experts were unable to attend a preparatory meeting in China last year.
“Walking away does not make science disappear,” Merner said in a statement. “It only leaves US people, policymakers and businesses in the dark at a time when credible climate information is most urgently needed.”
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Published on January 8, 2026
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