President Trump has long criticized the 2015 accord and insisted that the United States would exit it as soon as possible. As recently as last month, Trump called the agreement ‘‘a total disaster’’ and argued that the Obama administration’s pledges to cut carbon emissions under the deal would have ‘‘hurt the competitiveness’’ of the United States.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration notified the international community Monday that it plans to officially withdraw from the Paris climate accord next fall, a move that will leave the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases as the only nation to abandon the global effort to combat climate change.


In a statement Monday afternoon, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration had sent official notification to the United Nations of its plans.

‘‘In international climate discussions, we will continue to offer a realistic and pragmatic model — backed by a record of real-world results — showing innovation and open markets lead to greater prosperity, fewer emissions, and more secure sources of energy,’’ Pompeo said. ‘‘We will continue to work with our global partners to enhance resilience to the impacts of climate change and prepare for and respond to natural disasters.’’

But environmental and public health activists quickly condemned the decision, even as it came as no surprise.

‘‘Abandoning the Paris Agreement is cruel to future generations, leaving the world less safe and productive,’’ Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute, said in a statement. ‘‘It also fails people in the United States, who will lose out on clean-energy jobs, as other nations grab the competitive and technological advantages that the low-carbon future offers.’’

The Paris climate agreement legally entered into force Nov. 4, 2016, after the United States and other countries formally joined the landmark deal. But under rules set out by the United Nations, no country could leave the accord for three years, after which there is a one-year waiting period for the withdrawal to fully take effect.


Monday marked the first day that the Trump administration could give that one-year notice, and it wasted no time. That means the United States can now officially leave the Paris agreement Nov. 4, 2020 — the day after next year’s presidential election.

Should a Democrat win the White House, the nation could reenter the agreement after a short absence. But if Trump prevails, his reelection would probably cement the long-term withdrawal of the United States, which was a key force in helping forge the global effort under President Barack Obama.

Monday’s move comes at a time when scientists say that the world must take ‘‘unprecedented’’ action to cut its carbon emissions over the next decade, slashing them in half by 2030 to avoid irreversible and potentially catastrophic effects of climate change.

Critics have called Trump’s dismissal of the Paris accord irresponsible and dangerous, given the increasingly dire scientific warnings about rising sea levels, more extreme weather, and devastating impacts on agriculture and wildlife should the world fail to drastically cut its greenhouse gas emissions. They also call the decision bad economic policy, saying the administration is failing to embrace wind, solar, and other renewable technologies that are growing, even as the coal industry that Trump has tried to bolster continues to fade.

‘‘While the world will not be surprised, it’s a sad reminder of where the world’s former leader on climate change now stands,’’ Susan Biniaz, a former State Department climate negotiator and currently a lecturer at Yale Law School, said in an e-mail about Monday’s announcement. ‘‘The decision of two years ago [to abandon the Paris accord] is now even more grotesque — the reasons for withdrawing are no more correct, and the science is even clearer that, far from withdrawing, we should be increasing our efforts.’’


A growing number of Americans describe climate change as a crisis, and two-thirds say Trump is doing too little to tackle the problem, according to a recent poll conducted by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).