New Delhi [India], January 9 : After US President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Wednesday directing the withdrawal of the United States from multiple international organisations, conventions and treaties that are "contrary to the interests" of the US, former Indian diplomat Ashok Sajjanhar said that this move shows the US President being in climate denial", and instead wants to do more oil drilling.
In an interview with ANI, he said that the US President does not find relevance in renewables and his focus has been on oil.
"As far as the 66 international organisations are concerned, this has been happening for some time because if you remember, even in Trump 1.0, we had seen Trump withdrawing from the World Health Organisation, from some of the human rights organisations and the latest one, withdrawal from the International Solar Alliance, frankly does not come as a surprise because Mr. Trump has been in a climate denial. He doesn't think that there is any climate change taking place and that is why you would have seen that as far as renewable energy, green energy, he's been withdrawing from that... His motto has been more and more oil drilling. So he's focused on that. He doesn't think that there is any value or relevance or significance as far as renewables are concerned. So I'm not surprised that he has withdrawn from the ISA," Sajjanhar said.
Noting that the world acknowledges climate change as a reality, he gave a call to come together to deal with Climate change, irrespective of US actions.
"The whole world realises that climate change is a reality and the world needs to come together, work together, collaborate to deal with this existential scourge of climate change. So irrespective of what the United States is doing, world must do what it has to do and it needs to do," he added.
The announcement of US withdrawal from key international bodies was made in the statement of the Presidential Memoranda shared by the White House that mentioned withdrawal from 35-non non-UN organisations and 31 UN entities.
The Non-UN organisations include the India and France-led International Solar Alliance, key environmental bodies like the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Key UN organisations from which the US has withdrawn include the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, International Law Commission, International Trade Centre, Peacebuilding Commission, UN Energy and UN Population Fund and UN Water.
The move comes almost a year after the Trump administration had announced the withdrawal from the World Health Organisation (WHO) in January 2025, citing the mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic. The US had also withdrawn from UNESCO in July 2025, saying that the latter was not in the "national interest" of the United States.
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