Trump’s Withdrawal from UN Climate Body Breaks Bipartisan Consensus on Multilateral Efforts

Washington, D.C., January 15, 2026 - President Donald Trump’s recent withdrawal from the foundational United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and 64 other organizations—many of them affiliated with the United Nations—represents a sharp divergence from past Republican presidential administrations that sought to lead international environmental efforts and establish a comprehensive U.S. climate policy, according to declassified U.S. government documents posted today by the National Security Archive.

The UNFCCC, adopted on May 9, 1992, during the final year of President George H. W. Bush’s presidential term, is the overarching, bedrock climate treaty that initially brought together 195 countries to discuss the climate crisis. In the decades since its adoption, the treaty has provided a legal framework and bureaucratic infrastructure that has allowed nations to negotiate measures to address rising global temperatures, such as the annual Conference of Parties meetings. President Trump’s decision to sever ties with the UNFCCC is the administration’s latest attempt to roll back global climate efforts, an action critics say will further isolate the U.S. on the world stage.[1]

In the wake of the current administration’s withdrawal from the landmark treaty, the National Security Archive highlights four key documents about the establishment of the UNFCCC from the period when Bush was vice president under Ronald Reagan and during his own presidential term that ended in 1993. These records shed light on how Bush—in part at the urging of his advisors—sought to position himself as a leader on global environmental issues, even if his policies did not always satisfy the demands of environmental advocates.

While it is true that Republican presidents have often downplayed climate concerns, declassified records show that senior advisors to President George H. W. Bush (as was the case under Presidents Reagan and Nixon) early on recommended that the U.S. try to sever the “link between economic development and deterioration of the environment,” according to a State Department memorandum that laid out the proposed U.S. position for the July 1989 Paris economic summit. U.S. policy should advocate for “wise, active stewardship over the resources of our planet” and recognize that this was a “responsibility we have to ourselves and as our legacy to future generations.” (Document 1)

President George H. W. Bush’s early action on climate and his administration’s role in ushering in the UNFCCC and IPCC laid the groundwork for President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore to help lead global efforts resulting in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which established legally binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions, and shaped U.S. policies under President Obama that led to the 2015 Paris Climate Accords. Indeed, the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations represented the high-water mark of Republican support for multilateral efforts to address climate change, primarily through support for the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer and establishment of the UNFCCC and the IPCC, the scientific advisory body.

The Bush administration’s approach to the proposed climate change negotiations, like Reagan’s, sought to integrate and balance scientific research with assessments of the potential economic impacts of both climate change and steps to reduce greenhouse emissions. In fact, the Bush administration saw the 1987 Montreal agreement, signed under Reagan, as a model for efforts under the aegis of the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) to draft a UN framework convention on climate change that would guide negotiations on a treaty. However, President Bush and his advisors also had doubts about aspects of the scientific consensus on the topic.

William A. Nitze, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment, Health and Natural Resources, presented the U.S. position on global climate change at the initial UNEP session in March 1988 and said the U.S. would continue to take a leadership role. (Document 2) But Nitze, who was a key State Department official under both Reagan and Bush, said that more needed to be learned about the global and regional impacts of climate change and the full range of possible responses before the U.S. would consider a global convention on climate change.

To this end, the U.S. strongly supported creation of an intergovernmental panel to conduct and assess scientific research into the extent and effects of global climate change and the development of a range of possible response strategies. This would later evolve into the IPCC. However, U.S. support came with an important caveat: “Whatever response strategies are finally adopted will have to take into account other social and economic goals.”

The Bush 41 administration continued to push for this approach in the UN discussions surrounding what would become the UNFCCC, which was agreed on at the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, and Nitze stayed closely involved. A memorandum he prepared in August 1989 laid out the general principles that should guide a climate agreement. These included securing the widest possible participation (with a focus on the countries that made up a significant majority of the world’s population and those that produced the highest percentage of greenhouse gases); increasing understanding of the scientific aspects of global climate change; and protecting social, environmental and economic well-being from damaging impacts likely to result from climate change. (Document 3)

While the U.S. continued to emphasize the importance of scientific research and analysis, its positions in the UN discussions continued to reflect a desire to balance environmental protection and economic growth. This dynamic is evident in a memorandum setting out the policy guidelines for U.S. participants in a UN Response Strategies Working Group in September 1989 (Document 4). The memo describes what would become repeated components of U.S. policy preferences, emphasizing the use of market mechanisms in combination with regulations to reduce greenhouse emissions and giving countries the widest possible flexibility in meeting any agreed emission cuts. By the end of Bush’s term, there were signs that the administration’s progress on environmental efforts was stalled by perceived “uncertainty” about the science of climate change.[2]

Nonetheless, the U.S. Senate ratified the UNFCCC in 1992 as a formal treaty by a vote of 92 to 0, and it was signed into law by President Bush. With the election of Bill Clinton later that year, U.S. climate change diplomacy moved to a new stage culminating in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Ultimately, the administration did not submit the agreement to Congress for ratification, and the next administration, under President George W. Bush, withdrew from Kyoto and promoted a more aggressive energy policy led by Vice President Dick Cheney that deemphasized environmental concerns. The U.S. would continue to promote these views at meetings of the UNFCCC during the majority of George W. Bush’s two terms in office and withheld funds for any Kyoto Protocol-related costs. However, Bush did, in fact, demonstrate signs of reengagement with international climate policy in the last two years of his presidency, as seen with his establishment of the Major Economies Process on Energy Security and Climate Change, though it was widely criticized for weakening multilateral environmental negotiating efforts.[3]

President Obama would go on to reclaim a strong U.S. leadership role in the climate sphere, and his second term would culminate in the landmark Paris Climate Agreement. While President Trump, in his first term, ushered in a radical policy of climate change opposition and denial, his decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement in 2017 did not stop the subsequent Biden administration from rejoining the agreement and advancing an ambitious climate agenda at home and abroad.

Now, in President Trump’s second presidential term, the United States has become the first nation ever to attempt to withdraw from the landmark UNFCCC treaty. While debate continues over whether these efforts are lawful, President Trump has sent a clear signal that the United States will have no part in multilateral debates about climate change.[4]

The four documents below were originally published in 2018 as part of a comprehensive Archive history of U.S. climate change from President Reagan to President Obama: The U.S. and Climate Change: Washington’s See-Saw on Global Leadership.