The legal foundation that had regulated U.S. vehicle exhaust and power plant emissions for 17 years since 2009 disappeared on the 12th (local time). U.S. President Donald Trump announced at the White House the formal repeal of the so-called "endangerment finding," which held that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. It was the basis that allowed six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, to be subject to regulation. Environmental groups and state governments led by Democratic officials immediately announced plans to sue.
The same month, Europe produced the opposite decision. The European Parliament passed an amendment to its climate law cutting greenhouse gas emissions 90% from 1990 levels by 2040. What member states provisionally agreed to late last year cleared the parliamentary hurdle. The EU is also implementing its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) this year.
With the two developments arriving in the same February, it became clear where the central axis of the climate order is shifting. The United States declared its withdrawal from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change early this year, and in Trump's second term it pulled out of the Paris climate agreement again. This is the departure of a country that ranks first in cumulative emissions since the Industrial Revolution and second to China in annual emissions. There is no reason to downplay the impact.
The pressure has spread to international organizations as well. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright warned at a conference hosted by an international relations research institute in Paris on the 17th that the United States could withdraw from the International Energy Agency (IEA) if it leans too far toward climate issues. The United States has been demanding that the IEA stop publishing its net zero scenario.
Secretary Wright had also stated in July last year that it would be difficult to remain with the IEA without further reform. Whether withdrawal procedures have actually begun has not been confirmed.
The United States contributes 14% of the IEA's budget. In monetary terms that is about 6 million dollars a year, roughly 8.7 billion won. It is no small share in a single organization's accounts, but where the remaining 86% stands is what determines the actual course.
That answer came in Paris on the 19th. The IEA ministerial council, held over two days, ended without a joint statement. It was a meeting of minister- and vice minister-level officials from 55 countries, including 33 member states, 17 accession candidate and association countries, and five invited countries, with Second Vice Minister Lee Ho-hyun of the Ministry of Climate attending from South Korea. It was the first time since 2017, nine years ago, that it ended without a statement.
The 2024 ministerial council included in its joint statement an acceleration of the clean energy transition to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees. This time a chair's summary document was issued instead, and climate change appeared only in a single sentence stating that "many ministers referred to the importance of the energy transition and the need for a net zero transition consistent with the COP28 agreement." The sentences grew fewer, but the phrase "many ministers" remained. The disappearance of an agreed statement and the disappearance of a majority are entirely different stories.
To sum up: while one of the largest emitters strips away its regulatory basis and shakes the international negotiating table, a union of 27 countries has fixed its 2040 target in law and has begun operating a cross-border carbon pricing system this year. The retreat is real but not total. Those holding the board together are still the majority.
The question now is whether the repeal of the endangerment finding will survive the lawsuits and take effect in actual regulatory practice, and whether the U.S. warning of IEA withdrawal will lead to actual procedures. Neither will be settled within this month.
In the meantime, there is something individuals can hold on to as well. CBAM requires domestic companies shipping goods to Europe to report emissions for each individual product. It is a system under which the burden of emissions calculation comes down as far as small and medium-sized suppliers. Simply asking whether your current company or business partner has begun this calculation turns this trend from news into work.
