Last June, the world’s nearly 200 nations gathered in Bonn to discuss their efforts to minimize global climate change. For the first time in 30 years, the United States was not in the room. The U.S. is expected to be absent again in two days, when the rest of the world resumes those discussions at COP30.

It will not participate because America is no longer a party to the Paris Climate Agreement, thanks to President Donald Trump.

That’s not to say the United States is not involved. Although government science programs have been shuttered and Trump has banned the use of the word “climate,” American scientists are still working on solutions. However, America remains the world’s second-largest source of carbon pollution, and it is led by a president determined to make the U.S. an outlier, an outlaw, and a free rider in the global climate movement.

The question is whether other countries will let President Trump get away with it.

America’s official position – Trump’s policies to increase fossil-fuel production, suppress clean energy technologies, and abandon carbon-cutting goals – is at least as harmful domestically as it is internationally. President Trump is actively shutting down clean energy investments, including a wind-energy project that had already broken ground.

The Trump administration’s opposition to a wind energy project off the coast of Maryland has put its sponsor, US Wind, at risk of bankruptcy. Sponsors of a wind farm off the Massachusetts coast say they will not proceed because Trump’s policies have left them with “no viable path.”

In September alone, clean energy manufacturers cancelled construction of four new plants totaling $1.6 billion in investments. General Motors has stopped production of an electric van because Trump prevailed on the U.S. Congress to eliminate EV tax credits.

Although solar and wind power are cheaper than electricity generated by fossil fuels, Trump’s policies leave the U.S. electric system dangerously dependent on the economic volatility and pollution of natural gas and coal. Natural gas is widely touted as a “transition fuel,” but its price in the United States has gone up to the point that electric utilities are turning back to coal.

Last year, before Trump took office, clean energy jobs grew three times faster than the rest of America’s workforce, providing economic momentum. Now, companies have canceled more than $22 billion in clean energy manufacturing capacity, leading to significant job losses and missed opportunities for U.S. economic growth. One estimate is that a federal budget Trump pushed through Congress in July could cost the United States more than 830,000 jobs in the next five years, signifying a major economic setback.

Trump’s carbon-intensive energy policies may put U.S. businesses at a disadvantage in international markets. The EU plans to tax carbon-intensive imports starting next year; the UK plans the same in 2027. Other nations could follow. Companies that continue exporting carbon-intensive products will lose market share, and their American employees will lose jobs.

Nevertheless, Trump continues branding climate change as a hoax and a scam.

Why do his policies make America an international outlaw? A new study by the University of Washington estimates that Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris pact will raise the planet’s temperature by an additional 0.1 percent, assuming all other countries meet their goals. That doesn’t sound like much, but it means the chance of keeping global warming below 2 degrees, the upper limit set in Paris, will decrease from 34 percent to 27 percent. The study’s lead author, Prof. Adrian Raftery, says this is the most optimistic calculation of Trump’s impact.

Trump has used the threat of trade tariffs to extort the European Union and other nations into buying U.S. oil and gas, despite their own commitments under the Paris Agreement. The administration, joined by Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China, just blocked a proposed global tax on carbon pollution from shipping, a policy developed over 10 years.

In short, Trump has turned America from a global leader on mitigating climate change to a “go-it-alone pariah.”

However, the United States remains a signatory to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that signatory nations are obligated to cooperate in combating climate change. Even if the United States tried to withdraw from the UNFCCC, the ICJ cited other international treaties that require countries to “fulfill their duty to prevent significant harm to the environment by acting with due diligence,” especially in situations such as global warming, where the climate system is a “resource shared by all states.”

In the ICJ’s opinion, countries failing to meet their environmental obligations are liable for paying damages and reparations. Although no country has sued the United States yet, Trump’s reckless and renegade energy policies may make it only a matter of time.

Yet, while the United States complicates the world’s ability to stabilize the climate, it is not the only problem. Efforts to hold global warming to well below 2°C are lacking in many other nations, as is progress on most of the world’s other 3,000 multilateral environmental agreements, including the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

In addition, scientists convened by the Stockholm Resilience Institute, who defined nine critical planetary boundaries in 2009, say we have now crossed into dangerous territory for seven. Analysts say the barriers to international collaboration on environmental agreements include a lack of political will, limited resources, weak enforcement mechanisms, fragmented governance, and disagreements over who is responsible for ecological damages and threats. However, these problems are not unsolvable.

Trump’s international bullying raises the question of what else he may be doing to subvert the world’s timely transition to clean energy. It is worrying that three other countries joined the U.S. to stall the tax on carbon pollution from shipping. All countries must hold fast to the Paris Agreement. The United States will be back.

As for COP30, the best outcome would be for the remaining 195 countries in the Paris pact to demonstrate how nations can navigate the barriers to fulfill the visions of two of our great departed naturalists.

Theologian Thomas Berry, who died in 2009, declared that “Reconnecting the human species with the rest of the world is the great work of the 21st century.”

Jane Goodall, who died last month, left these words: “I want you to understand that we are part of the natural world. And even today, when the planet is dark, there is still hope.”