[ICN] Inside Climate News (Weekly)

It landed as one fell swoop after a year of relentless cuts to U.S. climate programs, personnel and policy.

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he would withdraw the United States from more than 60 international organizations and treaties, including the framework agreement for addressing climate change that a Republican administration helped to craft 33 years ago.

The moves, which face certain legal challenges and will take at least a year to execute in any case, go far beyond the nation’s exit from the Paris Agreement, which Trump announced at the start of his second term. They would mean that the U.S., the largest historic contributor to the world’s greenhouse gas overload, would be the only nation with no role in international negotiations to reduce pollution or aid poor nations that are bearing the brunt of climate impacts. The action invites a legal reckoning over Constitutional questions, such as whether a president can unilaterally abandon a treaty that has been Senate-ratified, as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was.

Trump is even seeking to remove the United States from the process of assessing climate science, although it is not clear that he has any power to block the 50 U.S. scientists from non-governmental institutions who are currently serving on the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In effect, the clearest impact of an exit from the IPCC would be giving up any leverage the United States has over the shape of the key findings of the panel, known as the Summary for Policymakers.

Climate action advocates pledged that state and local governments across the United States will remain committed to reducing greenhouse gas pollution. But the Trump administration also is engaged in a legal strategy to stop that from happening, this week filing suit against two California cities that have adopted ordinances to restrict natural gas infrastructure and appliances in new construction.

More of our coverage of the biggest story on the planet:

• As President Trump met with U.S. oil executives on Friday, Exxon CEO Darren Woods called Venezuela “uninvestable” at present and others expressed caution in response to the president’s overtures to pour billions of dollars into the country.

• The latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans, like previous editions, ignores the climate impacts of livestock and could make them worse, environmental groups worry.

• The EPA budget for 2026 rejects extreme cuts proposed by Republican representatives and the Trump administration. But advocates warn that significant cuts still jeopardize the agency’s ability to protect Americans’ health.

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