United Nations agencies say the imminent U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization and Paris climate agreement will have serious consequences for global health and efforts to slow down climate change.
“The World Health Organization regrets the announcement that the United States of America intends to withdraw from the organization,” the WHO said Tuesday in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration Monday that he intends to quit the U.N. health agency.
“WHO plays a crucial role in protecting the health and security of the world’s people, including Americans, by addressing the root causes of disease, building stronger health systems, and detecting, preventing and responding to health emergencies, including disease outbreaks, often in dangerous places where others cannot go,” it stated.
In explaining his decision, Trump accused the agency of being subject to “inappropriate political influence” from other member states. “World Health ripped us off, everybody rips off the United States. It’s not going to happen anymore,” he said in signing an executive order Monday, hours after his inauguration.
In responding to the allegations, WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic told journalists at a briefing in Geneva Tuesday that the United States, which was one of the founding members of WHO in 1948, had over seven decades together with the WHO, “saved countless lives and protected Americans and all people from health threats.”
“Together, we ended smallpox, and together we have brought polio to the brink of eradication,” he said.
The United States is the WHO’s single largest donor. It contributed $1.284 billion or 18 percent of the agency’s 2022-2023 budget.
Jasaravic said the U.S. decision was not unexpected and the WHO was now analyzing the exact details of Trump’s executive order “to see how this will play out and to see what will be the consequences.”
He noted that the United States can formally leave the WHO and stop financing the organization one year after the United Nations receives official written notice of U.S. withdrawal.
He said the WHO hopes the United States will reconsider its decision and maintain the U.S.-WHO partnership “for the benefit of the health and well-being of millions of people around the globe.”
“At the same time, we will continue to work in the world’s most difficult places,” including countries in conflict, “so we can protect the most vulnerable and be where people need us the most,” he said.
“The world lives longer, healthier, perhaps a little bit happier because of WHO, which goes to places where others cannot go, including Gaza, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Sudan,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, said in support of the beleaguered agency.
In the meantime, U.N. officials have called the U.S. decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement “a major disappointment,” noting that the world’s nations had adopted the accord because they recognized “the immense harm that climate change is already causing and the enormous opportunity that climate action presents.”
Antonio Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, said that it was “crucial that the United States remains a leader on environmental issues” in this critical decade for climate action.
The World Meteorological Organization has warned that “climate change is playing out, on an almost daily basis, through more extreme weather.”
A recent WMO report finds the last 10 years have been the hottest in recorded history, and that 2024 was the hottest year on record, with temperatures at about 1.55 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era.
“Every fraction of a degree of global warming has an impact on our economies and our lives,” Clare Nullis, WMO spokesperson said, adding that “The U.S. accounts for the lion’s share of global economic losses from weather, climate and water-related hazards.”
According to the non-profit USAFacts, “nearly 40 percent of the billion-dollar climate events that have hit the U.S. since 1980 happened between 2017 and the present day.” The data-gathering organization says that “2023 had the most billion-dollar natural disaster events of any year to date."
Nullis pointed out Tuesday that the ongoing Los Angeles wildfires are “estimated to be the most costly U.S. disaster on record.”
“Not all of these weather-related disasters, you know, have a connection with climate change. We are not saying that…but climate change is an aggravating factor. It is making our weather much more, much more extreme,” she said. “So, you know, the need for the Paris Agreement is pretty obvious.”
