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On Wednesday in New York, countries lined up to say they would accelerate their efforts to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. In staying away, the U.S. was all but alone.
Sept. 24, 2025Updated 4:10 p.m. ET
At a climate summit at the United Nations on Wednesday, the vast majority of the world’s nations gathered to make their newest pledges to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade.
Geopolitical heavyweights including China, Russia, Japan and Germany were there. Dozens of small island states were there. The world’s poorest countries, including Chad and the Central African Republic, were there. Venezuela, Syria, Iran — there, too.
The United States was not.
There are few issues on which the United States is more diplomatically isolated from the rest of the world than climate change. President Trump’s hostility to renewable energy, which he clearly broadcast in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, is at odds with the rapid construction of wind farms, solar arrays and other renewable energy sources in a range of countries. The construction boom includes even oil-producing giants like Saudi Arabia, which is adding solar capacity at a rapid clip.
“We are the dawn of a new energy era,” said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres as he opened the summit on Wednesday.
At the heart of the U.S. position is the Trump administration’s fundamental assertion — widely dismissed by economists, researchers and the political leadership of other nations — that the transition to renewable energy is a path to economic ruin.
“If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail,” Mr. Trump told world leaders on Tuesday, adding that countries, especially in Europe and Asia, should buy more of it from the United States. The United States is the world’s biggest producer of both oil and natural gas, and Mr. Trump has made it a priority to increase exports of these fossil fuels.
