Trump’s climate retreat stirs a sense of déjà vu — and prompts a warning from the UN

U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge to withdraw from the landmark Paris climate agreement for a second time creates a leadership vacuum that other countries can benefit from, according to the United Nations’ top climate official.

Trump on Monday signed an executive order to pull the U.S. out of the world’s biggest coordinated effort to tackle rising temperatures. He also announced a “national energy emergency” to pare back many Biden-era environmental regulations and vowed to ramp up fossil fuel production.

The order to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, which was widely expected, follows a similar move by the first Trump administration in 2017 and deals a major blow to global efforts to protect the environment.

The 2015 Paris Agreement is a framework designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming to “well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels” over the long term.

“We have been here before,” United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said during a CNBC-moderated panel at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday.

A key difference between Trump’s 2017 decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and Monday’s executive order, Stiell said, was the “significant momentum” to combat global warming in the intervening eight years.

“The world is undergoing an energy transition that is unstoppable. Last year alone, over $2 trillion was invested in the transition and that compares to $1 trillion in fossil fuels, so the signal is absolutely clear,” Stiell said.

“Anyone who steps back from this significant forward momentum creates a vacuum that others will fill and will benefit from. So, I think this kind of the framing context that we find ourselves in 14 hours after that statement,” he added.

Climate scientists condemned Trump’s order to remove the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, noting the pledge comes just weeks after U.S. and global scientific agencies confirmed the planet experienced its hottest year on record in 2024.

Trump, who has called the climate crisis “one of the great scams,” said Monday that he intended to boost oil and gas production during his second four-year term.

“We will drill, baby, drill,” Trump said in his inaugural address. He also pledged the U.S. would embark on a new age of oil and gas exploration.

“It’s tougher but the gentleman has done it before, and the world knows it has to improve itself,” Oliver Bate, CEO of Allianz, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” in Davos on Tuesday.

“We have reached the planetary boundaries, everyone knows that. Maybe it’s time to talk about it less but do more. At least that is what we are trying to do in our industry,” he added.

Zurich Insurance CEO Mario Greco dismissed the notion that Trump’s push to withdraw from the Paris climate accord constitutes a major political event.

“I think we have to admit that the Paris Agreement has not delivered any of the plans, ambitions, targets that were expected,” Greco said Tuesday.

“It’s also true that we’re looking for other means to achieve the reduction in the temperature that is badly needed. I mean that technology needs to help. Without technology, we are not going to make this planet colder than it is today or it is going to be soon. So no, I don’t think this is the big event,” he added.