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Argentina’s far-right President Javier Milei is considering withdrawing his country from the Paris Agreement, which aims to curb global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to several Western media reports. The speculation surfaced after Milei’s government asked its negotiators to leave the ongoing COP29 climate summit last week.
Argentina’s review of the landmark climate treaty comes at a time when the world is preparing for President-elect Donald Trump to withdraw the United States from the deal for the second time.
The Paris Agreement is an international accord that was adopted by nearly every country in 2015 to address climate change and its adverse effects. Its primary goal is to substantially reduce GHG emissions in a bid to limit global warming in this century to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, while pursuing the means to curb warming to 1.5 degrees.
The agreement mentions the safer limit of 1.5 degrees based on a fact-finding report which found that breaching the threshold could lead to “some regions and vulnerable ecosystems” facing high risks, over an extended, decades-long period.
The treaty also requires all Parties (countries which have joined the agreement) to state every five years what they are doing to tackle climate change — what is known as their nationally determined contribution (NDC). Each successive NDC is meant to reflect an increasingly higher degree of ambition compared to the previous version, according to the website of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Article 28 of the Paris Agreement lays out the procedure and timeline for a country’s withdrawal from the treaty.
It says, “[a]t any time after three years from the date on which this Agreement has entered into force (this happened in 2016) for a Party, that Party may withdraw from this Agreement by giving written notification to the Depositary”.
The Article also states, “[a]ny such withdrawal shall take effect upon expiry of one year from the date of receipt by the Depositary of the notification of withdrawal, or on such later date as may be specified in the notification of withdrawal.”
If a member state wants to withdraw from the treaty, it has to submit the notification of a withdrawal to the Office of Legal Affairs of the UN, based at UN Headquarters in New York.
Once the withdrawal notification has been received, it only becomes effective after one year (or later if the member state so says in the notification). Until the withdrawal comes into force, the member state remains in the Paris Agreement and has to fully participate in all activities under it, according to the UNFCCC website.
Argentina’s Foreign Minister Gerardo Werthein told The New York Times that although the country’s government is yet to make a decision on whether it will leave the treaty, it is reconsidering its participation in a deal that “has a lot of elements” that it does not agree with.
“We are re-evaluating our strategy on all matters related to climate change… And so far, we have not made any other decision beyond standing down until things are clearer,” he said.
Notably, President Milei is a climate denier. In the past, he has called climate change a “socialist lie”. Last year, President Milei had vowed to withdraw Argentina from the Paris Agreement but later backed out.
Werthein told The NYT that Argentina’s government doesn’t deny the existence of climate change and the discussion around the causes behind the warming was a “philosophical issue.”
“We have different views on the reasons,” he said. “We consider it to be linked to natural cycles, and we agree on the need to take measures to mitigate it.”
Experts fear that Argentina’s exit could trigger a domino effect, causing other countries to reconsider their own participation. This could undermine the Paris Agreement and the world’s climate goals — countries have to slash their emissions by 42% by 2030 and 57% by 2035 to ensure that the planet does not breach the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold.
Argentina is South America’s second-largest economy and the world’s 24th-largest emitter of GHGs. It comprises significant fossil fuel resources and exports, with the second-largest reserves of shale gas (a type of natural gas) and the fourth-largest reserves of shale oil worldwide, according to a report by The Washington Post.
The withdrawal could also isolate Argentina, Niklas Höhne, an expert in climate policy at the nonprofit think tank NewClimate Institute, told DW.
“Argentina will become even less attractive as a trading partner for anyone who takes climate protection seriously, especially now that various countries, above all the EU, are introducing import duties for climate-damaging products,” said Höhne.
However, some observers believe that President Milei will not be able to withdraw Argentina from the treaty easily due to domestic opposition. To implement the withdrawal, he will need the approval of the parliament which can prove to be a daunting task for him. Argentina ratified the Paris Agreement in 2016 and all international treaties ratified by the country hold constitutional status.
