This withdrawal will place the US alongside Iran, Libya, and Yemen as the only countries outside of the agreement, which was designed to limit global warming.
During his first term, Mr Trump also withdrew the US from the Paris deal, but President Joe Biden reversed that decision on his first day in office.
Leaving the treaty will take one year and Mr Trump has promised to increase domestic oil drilling. He claimed it would help lower energy prices and combat inflation. He argued that this was essential to securing America’s economic future.
His stance before politics
Before pursuing a political career, Mr Trump openly supported efforts to combat climate change.
In 2009, he was one of several business leaders who took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times, urging the US government to take meaningful action. The statement read: “If we fail to act now, it is scientifically irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our planet.”
“We support your efforts to ensure meaningful and effective measures to control climate change, an immediate challenge facing the United States and the world today,” the letter, addressed to the president and Congress, added. “Please allow us, the United States of America, to serve in modelling the change necessary to protect humanity and our planet.”
His stance during the start of his political career
In his first term as president (2017-2021), Mr Trump’s stance on climate change became more contentious.
However, during his campaign trail, Trump began to downplay the role of human activity in climate change, stating he was “not a big believer in man-made climate change.” In response to Barack Obama describing climate change as a major threat, he dismissed it as “one of the dumbest statements I’ve ever heard in politics — maybe in the history of politics.”
Mr Trump has referred to climate change as a “mythical” issue, calling it “bulls***,” “nonexistent,” and an “expensive hoax”.
President Trump vowed to bring about a “Golden Age” and a “revolution of common sense” for America during his inaugural address.
He has announced his intention to withdraw the US from the landmark Paris Climate Agreement — an international pact designed to limit long-term global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, or, failing that, to keep temperatures well below 2°C.
This decision came after global temperatures in 2024 surpassed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for the first time in a calendar year.
