Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), has warned that the United States’ decision to withdraw from UN climate bodies will harm its economy and lead to job losses.
Gatekeepers News reports that on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the country from several UN agencies and global organisations, including the UNFCCC and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The UNFCCC is a global treaty adopted in 1992 to guide international efforts to curb climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and strengthening adaptation. It provides the legal framework for global climate negotiations, including the Paris Agreement — which the US exited in 2025 — under which countries commit to limiting global temperature rise.
The IPCC is the UN’s scientific body tasked with assessing climate change. While it does not make policy, it provides governments with authoritative scientific assessments on climate impacts, risks, mitigation and adaptation that inform international decision-making.
In a statement on Thursday, Stiell said the US played a central role in establishing both the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement because they aligned with America’s national and economic interests.
“The United States was instrumental in creating the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, because they are both entirely in its national interests,” he said.
Stiell described the withdrawal as a retreat from global leadership, climate cooperation and science, warning that it would leave the US economy increasingly exposed as climate impacts intensify.
According to him, the decision will raise costs for American households and businesses, including energy, food, transport and insurance, as climate-driven disasters such as wildfires, floods, droughts and severe storms become more frequent and severe.
He added that the move could also result in job losses, particularly in manufacturing, as other major economies accelerate investments in clean energy and climate-resilient infrastructure.
“This is the only way to protect every nation from record-breaking global heating and its brutal impacts on every economy and population,” Stiell said.
The UN climate chief noted that renewable energy is already cheaper than fossil fuels in many parts of the world and has overtaken coal as the world’s leading energy source.
He said 194 countries agreed at COP30 that the global transition away from fossil fuels is irreversible, adding that the Paris Agreement is delivering results.
Stiell said UN Climate Change would continue working with countries to ensure they benefit from climate cooperation, stressing that the door remains open for the US to rejoin in the future.
He added that opportunities in clean energy, climate resilience and advanced technologies are too significant for American investors and businesses to ignore.
‘US deserves better than a government that turns back on science’
Reacting to the development, Mohammed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, described the US withdrawal from the climate bodies as “ignorant and reckless”.
While acknowledging that the US has the right to set its own policy priorities, Adow said pulling out of international climate agreements at a time of worsening climate impacts undermines global cooperation and effective policymaking.
“Political posturing cannot alter the underlying physics of greenhouse gas accumulation, and no amount of rhetoric can extinguish wildfires, hold back floods or stop a hurricane,” he said.
Adow warned that the decision would also directly harm Americans, noting that the US is already grappling with escalating climate impacts, including wildfires, extreme storms, agricultural disruption and damage to critical infrastructure.
According to him, abandoning international climate frameworks risks isolating the US from global solutions and leaving it behind as the world accelerates toward a clean energy economy that will define 21st-century prosperity.
He said the move should spur renewed unity among other countries, cities, states and institutions to strengthen climate action.
Adow added that African countries and the global south would continue to push for climate justice, urging wealthy polluters to meet their historical responsibilities and support a just transition to clean energy.
“We will move forward with or without American leadership,” he said.
“But ordinary Americans, like people everywhere, deserve better than a government that turns its back on science and their future security.”
