Trump's Climate Retreat Won't Halt Warming, But It Could Disrupt Global Cooperation
Donald Trump's renewed attack on climate multilateralism follows a predictable pattern. The US withdrawal from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and disengagement from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does not change the physical realities of our climate system. Temperatures will keep rising. Sea levels will continue to swell. Extreme weather events will intensify.
Exiting over 60 other treaties and multilateral bodies also fails to reverse economic trends. Investment in low-carbon energy still outpaces fossil fuels globally. However, this retreat dries up funding for non-profits working on climate action. It introduces friction into a narrative of inevitability that had started to take root among governments, markets, and the public.
Retreat Changes Politics When Speed Matters Most
This move alters the politics of cooperation at a critical moment. Climate negotiations are entering a more complex phase. They involve carbon budgeting under overshoot, contested discussions on geoengineering, and the urgent need to deploy solutions faster than impacts accumulate.
Walking away from global forums weakens trust. It narrows diplomatic space and leaves difficult questions unresolved. As UN climate chief Simon Stiell warned, American households and businesses will bear the consequences. They face higher energy volatility, greater climate damage, and missed economic opportunities.
Global Emissions Gap and Warming Trends
The latest UNEP Emissions Gap Report from 2025 delivers an unequivocal message. The so-called "multi-decadal average" temperature will at least temporarily surpass 1.5°C in the next decade. To stay aligned with the 1.5°C goal, global greenhouse gas emissions must fall by roughly 55 percent by 2035. Current national pledges fall far short of that mark.
The World Meteorological Organisation confirms this trend. The year 2025 ranked among the three warmest years ever recorded. It extends what scientists describe as a streak of extraordinary global temperatures. Even in the United States, emissions progress has stalled. Last year saw an uptick in both methane and carbon dioxide emissions.
Impacts on India and the Global South
This reversal matters because it reflects a broader global challenge. Mitigation is not happening at the required pace, while climate impacts accelerate. For countries in the Global South, this is not an abstract concern. In India, heat has become an economic shock.
The Lancet Countdown estimates that in 2024 alone, India lost around 247 billion potential labour hours due to heat exposure. This translates into nearly $194 billion in lost income. As warming intensifies, these losses will compound. They deepen inequality and strain development gains.
The Danger of Quick Fixes Like Geoengineering
In the rush to respond, there is a growing temptation to look for quick fixes. Some now frame geoengineering as a backstop in an overshoot world. Solar radiation modification, including stratospheric aerosol injection, aims to cool the planet by reflecting sunlight back into space.
The science remains incomplete, and the risks are substantial. Altered rainfall patterns, damage to the ozone layer, impacts on food systems, and serious public health concerns cannot be ignored. Geopolitical questions are equally troubling. Who decides when and how such tools are deployed? What happens if countries attribute floods or droughts to deliberate intervention?
More fundamentally, solar dimming does not address the root problem. Lowering temperatures temporarily is not the same as reducing or removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. A sunscreen is not a cure. Reliance on speculative fixes risks weakening incentives for real mitigation when resolve is needed most.
Cutting Methane: A Faster and Safer Solution
There is, however, a faster and safer lever available. Cutting short-lived climate pollutants offers the most effective way to slow warming in the near term. Methane, the second largest contributor to warming after carbon dioxide, accounts for roughly 30 percent of the temperature increase to date. It contributes about 0.5°C of current warming.
Over 20 years, methane is more than 80 times as potent as CO₂. Concentrations have more than doubled since pre-industrial times and continue to rise. The critical difference is methane's short atmospheric lifetime. Rapid reductions can deliver rapid results.
A global effort to cut methane emissions by 45 percent by 2030 could avoid nearly 0.3°C of warming by the 2040s. This is several times the near-term benefit expected from carbon dioxide reductions alone. It is the closest thing the climate system offers to an emergency brake. Without it, the risk of overshoot grows, along with pressure to gamble on unproven technologies.
The Paris Agreement Anniversary and the Road Ahead
December 2025 marked 10 years since the Paris Agreement was signed. The accord did change the trajectory. It pulled the world back from a pre-Paris path of roughly 3.5°C of warming to around 2.3 to 2.5°C. That remains dangerously above the agreed 1.5 to 2°C range, but progress was real.
The anniversary reminds us of what coordinated action can achieve. It also highlights how much harder the road ahead has become. Paris was never meant to be an endpoint. It was meant to be a framework for escalation. Ten years on, the test is whether countries choose to accelerate cooperation and mitigation, or retreat just as the costs of delay become impossible to ignore.
