Responding to the withdrawal of the United States of America from the Paris Climate Agreement, Marta Schaaf, Amnesty International’s Programme Director for Climate, ESJ and Corporate Accountability, said:
“The US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement sets a disturbing precedent that seeks to instigate a race to the bottom, and, along with its withdrawal from other major global climate pacts, aims to dismantle the global system of cooperation on climate action. The US is one of several powerful anti-climate actors but as an influential superpower, this decision, along with acts of coercion and bullying of other countries and powerful actors to double down on fossil fuels, causes particular harm and threatens to reverse more than a decade of global climate progress under the agreement.
“While the US may no longer be a party to the Paris Agreement, it still has legal obligations to protect humanity from the worsening impacts of climate change as confirmed by the International Court of Justice in its landmark 2025 Advisory Opinion.
“US-based climate advocates and activists now find themselves on the frontlines of a fight with implications for current and future generations everywhere. Global solidarity and support to ensure accelerating momentum to address climate change has never been more urgent. Those who witness the harms caused by climate change and who can speak safely – must speak up. Other governments too must push back against all coercive efforts by the US. Ceding ground now risks losing it for years. Neither the planet nor the people living on the frontlines of proliferating unnatural disasters have that much time.”
While the US may no longer be a party to the Paris Agreement, it still has legal obligations to protect humanity from the worsening impacts of climate change as confirmed by the ICJ in its landmark 2025 advisory opinion.
Marta Schaaf, Amnesty International’s Programme Director for Climate, ESJ and Corporate Accountability
Background
The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty adopted more than a decade ago by 196 parties aimed at combating climate change by pursuing efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C – a threshold that the world is rapidly surpassing.
The US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement comes into effect tomorrow, 27 January, following an executive order signed by US President Trump in January 2025. Just earlier this month, the US also declared it will withdraw from United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Green Climate Fund (GCF).
President Trump has also called for US withdrawal from over 60 other international organizations, including many others related to climate change, biodiversity and clean energy, calling them ‘wasteful, ineffective, or harmful’.
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