Can the President Withdraw from the Paris Agreement? (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
Dec. 5, 2016 |
| Report Number |
WITHDRAW |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
Recently, media outlets have reported that President-elect Donald Trump is considering options to withdraw the United
States from the Paris Agreement—an international agreement intended to reduce the effects of climate change by
maintaining global temperatures “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels[.]” As detailed in this earlier CRS report,
the Paris Agreement entered into force on November 4, 2016 and has been accepted by 112 parties, including the United
States and the European Union.
The Paris Agreement is a subsidiary to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC), a broader, framework treaty entered into during the George. H. W. Bush Administration. Unlike the
UNFCCC, which received the Senate’s advice and consent in 1992, the President has not submitted the Paris Agreement
to the Senate for approval. Instead, the Obama Administration appears to have treated the Paris Agreement as an
executive agreement, which the President may unilaterally execute, rather than a treaty, which requires the advice and
consent of the Senate. (The key distinctions are analyzed in this report and infographic.) No legislation implementing
the UNFCCC or the Paris Agreement into domestic law has been enacted, nor has the executive branch asserted that the
provisions in either are self-executing, a term used to describe international obligations that have the force of domestic
law without subsequent congressional action. Rather, the commitments made by the United States under the UNFCCC
and the Paris Agreement have been carried out domestically through pre-existing legislation, including the Intermodal
Surface Transportation Energy Efficiency Act of 1991 and the Clean Air Act.
