New York City is buzzing with activity this week, hosting the annual United Nations General Assembly, a gathering that brings together world leaders, diplomats, and activists from every corner of the globe. But this year, the stakes feel higher than ever, with climate change looming large over the proceedings. As the city’s streets clog with motorcades and security details, inside the UN’s iconic headquarters, a fierce debate is playing out over the future of international climate action—and the role the United States will play in it.
For years, scientists have warned that efforts to cut greenhouse-gas emissions are falling short of what’s needed to avoid catastrophic climate change. According to The New York Times, this reality weighs heavily on the minds of delegates as they convene in New York. The General Assembly, which runs throughout the week of September 22, 2025, is not just a diplomatic spectacle; it’s a critical moment for the world to assess its progress under the 2015 Paris Agreement and to chart a course forward.
On September 24, national governments are expected to detail their latest plans for hitting emissions targets. The pressure is on: countries face mounting calls to set more ambitious reduction goals for 2035, especially as COP30, the next major climate summit, approaches in Brazil. Yet, as FRANCE 24 reports, the response so far has been tepid. Of the 195 signatories to the Paris Agreement, only 13 met the February 2025 deadline to submit updated pledges, and just 37 have submitted new plans at all.
Against this backdrop, President Donald Trump’s scheduled speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday, September 23, has taken on outsized significance. According to Politico, Trump’s administration is actively considering whether to pull the United States out of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)—the 1992 treaty that underpins virtually all international efforts to slow greenhouse-gas emissions, including the Paris Agreement itself. While Trump moved to abandon the Paris Agreement on his first day in office, leaving the UNFCCC would mark an even more dramatic break from global consensus.
The Trump administration’s posture on climate has shifted sharply from the previous U.S. stance. As The New York Times notes, the U.S.—which under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had positioned itself as a leader on climate—has now retreated from that role. Trump has reversed domestic regulations designed to expand clean energy and reduce pollution, dissolved the State Department office responsible for climate negotiations, and favored policies that expand oil, gas, and coal. “The U.S. has retreated from climate leadership under President Trump, promoting fossil fuels and dismissing climate threats,” The New York Times reports bluntly.
This pivot has not gone unnoticed by other world leaders. Hilda Heine, president of the Marshall Islands, warned in an interview with The New York Times that her low-lying nation faces existential risk: “We will be submerged by 2050 if the world doesn’t do its part,” she said. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, president of Guyana, described the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement as “a major blow.” Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, expressed continued faith in multilateral diplomacy, stating, “I don’t think there’s a shortcut around the U.N. framework.”
Trump’s administration has been conducting a sweeping review of U.S. participation in international organizations. Back in February 2025, Trump ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio to identify which organizations the U.S. should quit, defund, or reform, with recommendations due by early August. The review, as Politico details, included a spreadsheet ranking treaties and institutions by their costs and benefits. Mike Waltz, confirmed as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. just days before the General Assembly, signaled skepticism about the value of spending on U.N. climate initiatives, asking pointedly, “What’s it doing?”
Some conservative voices are urging Trump to go further. Steven Groves, a former Trump official now at the Heritage Foundation, argued, “There is zero benefit to remaining in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Leaving the Convention would prevent future Democrat administrations from circumventing Senate advice and consent on treaties, as President Obama did with the Paris Agreement.” Yet, he also suggested that Trump might not make such an announcement in his U.N. speech, calling a withdrawal “trivial” compared to Trump’s focus on trade and peace deals.
Legal experts caution that leaving the UNFCCC could have far-reaching consequences. Jean Galbraith, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told Politico, “First, it takes the United States out of the main forum for a crucial conversation about how to save our planet. And second, it is a kind of potential path to a lot of instability going forward.” The debate over whether a future president could easily rejoin the treaty remains unsettled, adding another layer of uncertainty to the proceedings.
While the U.S. government’s stance has shifted, other actors in American society are stepping up. Rob Walton, the eldest son of Walmart founder Sam Walton, recently pledged $115 million to Arizona State University to create a new school focused on conservation—the largest gift in the institution’s history. The Rob Walton School of Conservation Futures aims to train professionals in land management, flood control, and wilderness protection, offering undergraduate and graduate degrees as well as a 2,400-acre training site in Hawaii. “Conservation often starts at the local level, but to make a difference, solutions have to scale,” Walton said in a statement, as reported by The New York Times.
Meanwhile, the city itself is alive with climate-related events. Climate Week NYC runs in parallel with the General Assembly, featuring the Climate Forward conference on September 24 and a lineup of high-profile speakers, from U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright to international leaders like Hilda Heine. The urgency is palpable: after another year of record global temperatures and climate-fueled disasters, the need for decisive action has never been clearer.
Yet, the international response remains fragmented. As FRANCE 24 points out, most countries have yet to update their emissions pledges, and the world is still far from meeting the targets scientists say are necessary to avert disaster. The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, is hosting a special climate summit to push for more ambitious commitments, but with only a fraction of countries stepping up, the path forward looks uncertain.
As the week unfolds, all eyes are on New York—not just for the speeches and the headlines, but for signs of whether the world’s leaders can muster the will to confront what former vice president Al Gore called “the problem from hell.” The choices made here, and in the months leading up to COP30, will help determine whether future generations inherit a planet in peril or one on the path to recovery.
