Trump orders US withdrawal from Gurugram-based International Solar Alliance

New York, Jan 8
President Donald Trump has ordered the US out of the Gurugram-headquartered International Solar Alliance (ISA) that promotes using energy from the sun to combat climate change.

The ISA was among the 66 international entities that he withdrew the US from in an order on Wednesday, alleging that they worked “contrary to US national interests”, the White House said.

Trump, who has called climate change a "hoax", swung the axe hard against entities -- UN and non-UN -- with climate and environment mandates, catching the ISA.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that one of the reasons for the US action was "climate orthodoxy" that was working against "our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity".

The ISA was founded in 2015 jointly by India and France and has 124 signatories, of whom about 100 are full members.

Its primary goal is to raise investments of $1 trillion for solar energy, besides encouraging related technologies by 2030. It is headed by Director-General Ashish Khanna.

Between 2022 and 2025, Washington’s contributions to the ISA were $2.1 million, according to a US government database, which said the funds were “to support the US-India Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 Partnership through ISA programmes to accelerate the deployment of solar in developing and emerging countries”.

The United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change, through which the Paris Climate Agreement was reached, was foremost among the 31 UN-linked organisations that Trump targeted.

Others included UN entities dealing with water, oceans, and energy, and the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries.

The 35 non-UN organisations included nine working in the climate change and environment areas.

Among them was the International Panel on Climate Change that was headed by India’s Rajendra Pachauri when it won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

The US committed to joining the ISA in 2016 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President Barack Obama at the White House.