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Paper short abstract

In 2026, the US withdrew from the UNFCCC, framed as “contrary to US interests.” This paper argues the exit isn’t incoherent anti-policy but a populist struggle over valuation: protecting fossil fuels from devaluation and market discipline, mirrored in EU ETS debates.

Paper long abstract

On 7 January 2026, President Trump issued a memorandum directing the United States to withdraw from 66 international organisations, treaties, and conventions deemed “contrary to the interests of the United States, including its economic interests” (Trump 2026). Among these was the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The withdrawal followed the earlier U.S. exit from the Paris Agreement and formed part of broader retrenchment from other climate institutions. Conventional policy analysis framed the move as illogical and self-defeating, since the UNFCCC functions primarily as a procedural organisation within a multilayered climate governance architecture. Critics argued that exit would weaken U.S. influence over regulatory standards, diplomatic negotiations, and market-making functions in climate governance.

This paper contends that ‘the exit’ is not incoherent anti-policy but reflects a deeper contestation over valuation in climate governance (Battistoni 2025; Fraser 2023). The UNFCCC was targeted because it institutionalised an eco-modernist valuation regime that reclassified fossil fuels from ‘free gifts of nature’ into objects of accounting, subject to pricing and market constraint. The exit thus represents an attempt to protect fossil fuels from devaluation and market discipline—an ‘anti-devaluation’ rather than ‘anti-market’ logic (Colgan et al. 2021; Wood 2019). Similar dynamics are evident in recent EU Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) debates, where East European populist leaders have called for suspension of the ETS2 to avoid market discipline.