Republican lawmakers — including moderates who have supported U.S. action against climate change — largely brushed aside President Donald Trump’s moves to quit the world’s overarching climate treaty and related programs.
The Trump administration announced Wednesday that the United States would withdraw from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
On Thursday, the administration also pulled out of the Green Climate Fund, which is affiliated with the UNFCCC and invests billions in climate initiatives in developing countries.
The UNFCCC was ratified by the Senate in 1992 and has served as the basis for international emissions reduction action since. It has universal participation.
The treaty was adopted when Republican President George H.W. Bush was in office, and it did not see Senate opposition.
But Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), one of two sitting senators to have served in the chamber during the treaty ratification, said Thursday, “I think I would support the president” on withdrawing from the UNFCCC.
Grassley has often dubbed himself the “father of wind energy” for championing the first federal tax incentives for wind.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has also advocated for clean energy and expressed concerns about the impact of climate change in Alaska, said Thursday she had “no comment” on the administration’s withdrawals.
Environment and Public Works Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said she was “not surprised” at Trump’s decisions to withdraw from the treaty and programs.
She said her committee would continue to focus on “keeping and improving the environment in this country,” rather than abroad. “I think we might as well focus on what we can control, and that’s the thing we can control,” Capito said.
Capito attributed the shifting attitude toward the treaty since it sailed to ratification in the 1990s to “the politicization of environmental and international environmental policy.”
“The environmental movement, in my opinion, in some ways, has taken this so far afield from the original intention,” she said.
The UNFCCC and IPCC were part of dozens of international treaties and programs that the Trump administration quit Wednesday evening.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the withdrawals were intended to stop taxpayer money from “flowing to foreign interests at the expense of our people.”
According to the terms of the UNFCCC, withdrawal from the treaty will take effect a year after the United States submits a request to the United Nations to leave.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday said that the Green Climate Fund withdrawal marked a move away from “radical organizations.”
“Our nation will no longer fund radical organizations like the GCF whose goals run contrary to the fact that affordable, reliable energy is fundamental to economic growth and poverty reduction,” Bessent said.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who has spent years pushing for a foreign pollution fee that would tax certain imports based on their carbon intensity, said Thursday that when it came to the withdrawals from the climate emissions programs, he would “have to think about what that implies.”
“I know that my businesses want to have the ability to show the Europeans their carbon intensity because it increases their competitiveness. And so I have to think this through and, if you will, study my way through, what are the implications of it,” Cassidy said.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who has also been an advocate for clean energy, said he was reviewing the 66 programs from which the Trump administration is withdrawing and would soon make a determination about the UNFCCC and related programs.
Democrats push back
Congressional Democrats were quick to slam the president’s actions this week.
EPW ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) called the UNFCCC withdrawal “polluter driven stoogery.”
“Denying scientific fact and forfeiting U.S. climate leadership to our economic competitors is folly; doing so for corrupt reasons is worse. As climate change drives up insurance premiums, grocery prices, and energy costs, American families will pay the price for Trump’s fossil fuel corruption,” Whitehouse said in a statement.
The Rhode Island Democrat also said that because the treaty was initially ratified by the Senate, it would require Senate approval to withdraw from it. But at least some legal experts have questioned that assessment.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee, said: “This is climate denial as foreign policy. Withdrawing from these international clean energy and environmental programs will be remembered as one of the greatest acts of economic self-sabotage in American history.”
Reporters Nico Portuondo and Sara Schonhardt contributed.
This story also appears in Climatewire.
