On the first day of his administration, Pres. Donald Trump signed an executive order immediately withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement. Media have reacted with horror and predictions of doom.
What the Media Don’t Tell You About U.S. Emissions
Here’s what they don’t say, don’t even seem to know, or at least they don’t want you to know: The U.S. has cut more carbon dioxide emissions from energy since 2005 (the Paris Agreement’s benchmark) than any other country in the world.
Since 2005, electricity-based carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the United States have fallen by 1,234.14 million metric tons, per the 2024 Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy.
Changes in CO2 Emissions from Energy Around the World, 2005–2023 (in Million Metric Tons)

Despite significant reductions made in the U.S., India alone has more than erased them. China, furthermore, has added more than four times the amount of electricity-based CO2 emissions as what the U.S. has cut: The U.S. has cut 1,234.14 million metric tons of CO2 emissions, while China has added 5,139.12 million metric tons.
North Carolina has also seen a significant decline — more than half (52 percent) — in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy generation.
North Carolina’s Electricity-Based CO2 Emissions, 2000–2023 (Million Metric Tons)

What the Media Tell You Instead
Despite the U.S. outstripping everyone else in cutting emissions, here is a sampling of how media are reacting to Trump’s decision.
CNN opted for the old media climate-change enthymeme to suggest that Trump’s action would lead to ecological disasters. Essentially, the game is to cite an action that climate zealots dislike, then say something about how terrible climate change is predicted (by them) to be, and hope that you, the reader, will think that putting the two next to each other amounts to the causation they cannot factually assert:
President Donald Trump signed actions on the first day of his second term to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement, an international climate change treaty in which nearly 200 countries agreed to work together to limit global warming.
The stakes couldn’t be higher for the planet and humanity’s ability to adapt to the changing climate and the increasing cost of climate-related disasters.
The planet crossed a consequential threshold in 2024 — 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming — that dates back to the day the Paris Agreement was adopted.
NPR followed suit and also went with the predictable, antiscientific approach of saying it was actually the hottest year on record and blaming climate change for Hurricane Helene:
The move to exit the Paris Agreement … comes after the hottest year on record, as major wildfires are still burning in Los Angeles, and just months after devastating hurricanes hit communities from Florida to North Carolina. Climate change is increasing the risk from hurricanes, driving more extreme rainfall, and making more intense and destructive wildfires more likely.
Environmental groups harshly criticized the decision. Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental watchdog group, said the human and economic consequences of climate change will only grow if the U.S. doesn’t do its part to limit warming.”
Even now…we’re seeing these droughts, storms, heat waves, flooding, sea level rise accelerating,” Cleetus said. “It is just stunning already the kinds of impacts that are unfolding.”
The New York Times went from the enthymeme to attack Trump’s decision also on the notion that it would supposedly harm the economy (in their vision, it seems, “doubl[ing] down” on domestic energy production, transportation, refining, and generation wouldn’t require workers):
Scientists, activists and Democratic officials assailed the move as one that would deepen the climate crisis and backfire on American workers. Coupled with Mr. Trump’s other energy measures on Monday, withdrawal from the pact signals his administration’s determination to double down on fossil-fuel extraction and production, and to move away from clean-energy technologies like electric vehicles and power-generating wind turbines.
Reuters went so far as to request the Chinese government’s thoughts on the subject (see the graph above and this brief to judge the sense of that decision):
CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESWOMAN MAO NING
“China is concerned about the U.S. announcement that it will withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Climate change is a common challenge facing all of humanity. No country can stay out of it, and no country can be immune to it.”
The truth is, the U.S. has cut more energy-based CO2 emissions than any other nation. We don’t need Paris. We never did.