The statement comes after years of conservatives laying the groundwork for Trump to withdraw from the global agreement intended to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases causing climate change.

By Ben Lefebvre and Zack Colman

06/28/2024 08:48 PM EDT

Donald Trump would yank the United States out of the Paris climate accord for the second time if he wins the presidency again in November, a campaign spokesperson told POLITICO Friday.

The statement comes after years of conservatives laying the groundwork for Trump to withdraw from the global agreement intended to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases causing climate change. Their efforts include drafting executive orders for Trump to quickly sign if he regains the White House, a lawyer familiar with the process told POLITICO.

Among them is a draft order that could remove the United States from the entire United Nations’ framework underpinning global climate negotiations, a much more definitive step that could do lasting damage to the effort to limit the Earth’s warming.

When asked Friday if Trump would repeat his removal of the United States from the landmark climate agreement, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt replied, “Yes, he has said that” he would.

Trump’s planned withdrawal isn’t a surprise, given his previous withdrawal and the lobbying by conservatives. Trump himself railed against the Paris accord in his debate with President Joe Biden in Atlanta on Thursday, saying the agreement was “a rip off of the United States” and “a disaster.”

Industry lawyers have been preparing different executive orders on different energy policies for Trump’s signature, people familiar with the effort have said.

“A couple different versions” of draft executive orders pulling the U.S. out of the accord currently exist for Trump to sign, an oil industry lawyer familiar with the process told POLITICO. One version of the orders includes removing the United States from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said this person, who was granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to the media.

The UNFCCC is the underlying framework that serves as the basis for the global climate talks. Trump could be going even further by attempting to pull out of the 1992 U.N. treaty, a move that could require Senate approval for the U.S. to rejoin and might freeze the U.S. out of the system indefinitely.

Leavitt did not respond to a question on whether Trump was considering having the United States leave the UNFCCC, which would be an even bigger setback to the global fight against climate change.

The Biden administration has made progress in securing global agreements to combat climate change since returning to the Paris agreement after Trump’s withdrawal. This includes a hard-fought deal with China, the world’s largest climate polluter, to reduce emissions from the power sector this decade and curb all greenhouse gases.

A U.S. retrenchment would come as green parties took a beating in recent elections in the European Union, a blow to a key voice that has often pushed for more ambitious climate action — leaving a potential global leadership vacuum.

The United States joined the 2015 Paris Agreement under President Barack Obama, only to have Trump reverse the move.

The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation includes such a step in its Project 2025 policy blueprint, a sprawling manifesto detailing actions they hope the next Republican president would take. The Trump campaign has usually declined to confirm or deny that it would pursue specific proposals outlined in the Heritage document, instead asserting that only Trump and his team have the authority to announce his policy positions.

The Paris agreement is “a bad deal for the United States,” said Mandy Gunasekara, an EPA chief of staff during the Trump administration and author of Project 2025’s energy and environmental provisions. “It does little to meaningfully reduce emissions. It’s been used to justify onerous regulations that make energy more expensive.”

Trump could not immediately pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord. Countries must give notice to the U.N. secretary-general and wait one year to formally withdraw. That is what happened when Trump gave notice he was pulling the United States out in 2019, with the U.S. officially exiting the following year.

Exiting the UNFCCC would be altogether a much more drastic move.

Doing so would effectively end U.S. participation in global climate talks, obliterating international cooperation when nations are still far off track from goals to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial era.

A U.S. departure would impede the UNFCCC’s operations, as the U.S. is a major funder of the treaty. It also could erect more significant hurdles for a future president to rejoin the Paris climate agreement.
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Leaving the UNFCCC, which also would take one year, would also excuse the U.S. from contributing to funding streams aimed at helping developing countries reduce their emissions and respond to the effects of climate change.

The U.S. has often failed to meet even its own pledges on finance, with Trump zeroing out contributions to the Green Climate Fund during his first term. But a move by the United States, the world’s top economy and the biggest historical contributor to climate change, to leave those arrangements altogether would likely chill efforts to generate more finance from other countries.

Even without formally ditching Paris or the UNFCCC, a Trump win would likely diminish U.S. climate aid. That reality will color this November’s talks in Azerbaijan, which come after the U.S. election. Nations there are expected to set a new goal for delivering climate finance to developing nations.