Among President Donald Trump's flurry of Jan. 20 executive orders was one promising to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change and disengage the country from the treaty-bound United Nations entity coordinating the world's response to global warming.

Neither action will be immediate, and the ultimate outcomes, including implications for America's standing globally, are unclear.

"It is the policy of my administration to put the interests of the United States and the American people first in the development and negotiation of any international agreements with the potential to damage or stifle the American economy," the executive order said. "These agreements must not unduly or unfairly burden the United States."

Beyond stepping away from 2016 Paris deal, the US will immediately withdraw from any "pact, accord, or similar commitment" made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said the order, one of more than 50 executive actions Trump signed on Day 1 of his second presidency. The US is a signatory to the 1992 UNFCCC treaty, raising questions about how the administration intends to carry out its plan.

"Their desire is unambiguous and unsurprising," David Victor, a climate expert and professor at the University of California San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy, said in an interview. "Then there's silence about whether they can deliver on that because of this question of how you withdraw from a treaty that the Senate has ratified."

Whatever steps the administration takes to end its engagement with the UNFCCC will spur legal challenges, Victor predicted. In all, 198 parties have ratified the convention.

Sending 'vast wealth to competitor economies'

Diplomats and international relations analysts have warned that the US risks being left on the sidelines as other signatories, such as the European Union and China, pick up the mantle and negotiate outcomes that can affect American industry without input from US diplomats.

"The global clean energy boom — worth $2 trillion last year alone and rising fast — is the economic growth deal of the decade," Simon Stiell, executive director for UN Climate Change, said in a LinkedIn post. "Ignoring it only sends all that vast wealth to competitor economies, while climate disasters like droughts, wildfires and superstorms keep getting worse, destroying property and businesses, hitting nation-wide food production and driving economy-wide price inflation."

Others warned that the Trump administration's decision to end US climate engagement globally could also affect the country's broader international relationships.

"In addition to the obvious climate harms, such an extreme isolationist posture on a paramount issue of international diplomacy will have wider repercussions for the United States' standing in the world and its ability to secure international cooperation on other issues of national importance," Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Union of Concerned Scientists' climate and energy program, said in a statement.

When it officially leaves the Paris Agreement, the US will join Iran, Libya and Yemen as nations not party to the deal to limit the rise of global temperatures to 1.5 degrees C from pre-industrial levels.

The Biden administration in December 2024 set a US goal to reduce economywide greenhouse gas emissions 61% to 66% by 2035 from 2005 levels before hitting net-zero by 2050. That goal was officially submitted to the UNFCCC on Dec. 19, although the Trump administration is unlikely to adhere to it.

'Fiscal restraint'

Trump's executive order also immediately revoked the 2021 US International Climate Finance Plan. All government web pages about climate finance programs, or anything else referring to climate change, had been taken down as of early Jan. 21.

"The secretary of state, secretary of commerce, and the head of any department or agency that plans or coordinates international energy agreements shall henceforth prioritize economic efficiency, the promotion of American prosperity, consumer choice and fiscal restraint in all foreign engagements that concern energy policy," the executive order said.

At the high-profile World Economic Forum underway in Davos, Switzerland, business and political leaders from Europe and China are being pragmatic and talking about stepping up their climate efforts in a repeat of Trump's first term, Victor said. He is attending the summit and said US climate policies are not on top of the list, anyway, for nations more preoccupied with the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and with large tech companies' influence on politics.