US withdrawal from UN climate treaty ‘regrettable’ — EU’s Hoekstra
PARIS, France (AFP) — The European Union’s (EU) climate chief said Thursday that Europe would keep working with other nations to tackle global warming despite the United States (US) announcing its exit from a bedrock United Nations (UN) climate treaty.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the United States would withdraw from dozens of global organisations and treaties, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The treaty adopted in 1992 is a global pact by nations to cooperate to drive down planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
European Union Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said the UNFCCC “underpins global climate action” and lamented the US move to walk away from the cornerstone agreement.
“The decision by the world’s largest economy and second-largest emitter to retreat from it is regrettable and unfortunate,” Hoekstra said in a post on LinkedIn.
“We will unequivocally continue to support international climate research, as the foundation of our understanding and work. We will also continue to work on international climate cooperation.”
Trump, who has thrown the full weight of his domestic policy behind fossil fuels, has openly scorned the scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, deriding climate science as a “hoax”.
His administration sent no representative to the most recent UN climate summit in Brazil in November, which is held every year under the auspices of the UNFCCC.
Teresa Ribera, the EU’s vice-president for the clean transition, said the Trump administration “doesn’t care” about the environment, health or the suffering of people.
“Peace, justice, cooperation or prosperity are not among its priorities,” she wrote on the social media network Bluesky.
Trump has already withdrawn from the landmark Paris climate accord since returning to office, just as he did during his first term from 2017–2021 in a move later reversed by his successor, Democratic president Joe Biden.
Exiting the underlying treaty could introduce additional legal uncertainty around any future US effort to rejoin.
