Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva meet in Beijing in May 2025. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
As U.S. steps back from climate leadership, China and other nations step in
Original story by Shannon Gibson
When President Donald Trump announced in early 2025 that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement for the second time, it triggered fears that the move would undermine global efforts to slow climate change and diminish America’s global influence.
A big question hung in the air: Who would step into the leadership vacuum?
I study the dynamics of global environmental politics, including through the United Nations climate negotiations. While it’s still too early to fully assess the long-term impact of the United States’ political shift when it comes to global cooperation on climate change, there are signs that a new set of leaders is rising to the occasion.
World responds to another US withdrawal
The U.S. first committed to the Paris Agreement in a joint announcement by President Barack Obama and China’s Xi Jinping in 2015. At the time, the U.S. agreed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025 and pledged financial support to help developing countries adapt to climate risks and embrace renewable energy.
Just two years after the landmark Paris Agreement, Trump stood in the Rose Garden in 2017 and announced he was withdrawing the U.S. from the treaty, citing concerns that jobs would be lost, that meeting the goals would be an economic burden, and that it wouldn’t be fair because China, the world’s largest emitter today, wasn’t projected to start reducing its emissions for several years.
President Joe Biden brought the U.S. back into the agreement. Now, with Trump pulling the U.S. out again — and taking steps to eliminate U.S. climate policies, boost fossil fuels and slow the growth of clean energy at home — other countries are stepping up.
On July 24, 2025, China and the European Union issued a joint statement vowing to strengthen their climate targets and meet them. They alluded to the U.S., referring to “the fluid and turbulent international situation today” in saying that “the major economies … must step up efforts to address climate change.”
In some respects, this is a strength of the Paris Agreement — it is a legally nonbinding agreement based on what each country decides to commit to. Its flexibility keeps it alive, as the withdrawal of a single member does not trigger immediate sanctions, nor does it render the actions of others obsolete.
The agreement survived the first U.S. withdrawal, and so far, all signs point to it surviving the second one.
One bloc emerging as a powerful voice in negotiations is the Like-Minded Group of Developing Countries – a group of low- and middle-income countries that includes China, India, Bolivia and Venezuela. Driven by economic development concerns, these countries are pressuring the developed world to meet its commitments to both cut emissions and provide financial aid to poorer countries.
China, motivated by economic and political factors, seems to be happily filling the climate power vacuum created by the U.S. exit.
Read the full story in The Conversation >>
Related: Gibson Climate Justice Lab insights from COP29 >>