In bid to ‘put America first,’ Trump again withdraws U.S. from Paris climate accord

By Daniel Payne

CNA Staff, Jan 21, 2025 / 13:30 pm

President Donald Trump on Monday once again withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, backing the country out of the nine-year-old climate accord and billing the move as both an economic and environmental boon to the U.S. 

The president issued the executive order as part of a flurry of directives he signed within hours of taking the oath of office for the second time. 

The Paris Agreement, an international accord to limit carbon emissions in an effort to halt climate change, has been signed by nearly 200 countries since it was first proposed in 2016. The agreement aims to keep global temperatures from rising beyond 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. 

The U.S. first entered into the agreement in 2016, but Trump in his first term ordered the country to withdraw from it. Upon taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden directed that the U.S. would once again join the accord. 

Trump’s re-withdrawal from the compact on Monday was done in an effort to “put the interests of the United States and the American people first in the development and negotiation of any international agreements with the potential to damage or stifle the American economy,” the president’s executive order said. 

The order directs the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to submit a withdrawal notice to the United Nations itself and for multiple U.S. departments to rescind policies related to the plan. 

Trump’s directive further abolishes the U.S. International Climate Finance Plan, a Biden-era program that offered funding to low-income nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

In the order, the White House said that the U.S. in recent decades “has simultaneously grown its economy, raised worker wages, increased energy production, reduced air and water pollution, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.” 

“The United States’ successful track record of advancing both economic and environmental objectives should be a model for other countries,” it said. 

The Paris Agreement has received the backing of the Vatican. 

Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said in 2018 that implementation of the accord should be focused on “easing the impact of climate change through responsible mitigation and adaptation measures.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has also expressed support for the accord. 

In 2017, ahead of the U.S.’s first withdrawal from the agreement, the USCCB said in a statement that the “entire Catholic Church” has “consistently upheld the Paris Agreement as an important international mechanism to promote environmental stewardship and encourage climate change mitigation.” 

“The president’s decision not to honor the U.S. commitment to the Paris Agreement is deeply troubling,” the bishops said at the time.

Daniel Payne is a senior editor at Catholic News Agency. He previously worked at the College Fix and Just the News. He lives in Virginia with his family.

CNA – Catholic News Agency