Paris Climate Agreement Withdrawal
Published September 20, 2026
On May 31, 2017, news broke that President Donald Trump had decided to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, and within hours Twitter and Reddit filled with reactions from politicians, journalists, and Elon Musk that turned the announcement into one of the defining political online moments of that year.
Overview
Paris Climate Agreement Withdrawal refers to the online reaction cycle around President Donald Trump's May 2017 decision to pull the United States out of the international climate deal by 20201. Rather than an image macro or catchphrase, the story spread as a news event that ricocheted through Twitter reaction tweets, Reddit megathreads, and cable-news graphics over the course of a single afternoon2.
The Paris Accord itself was signed on April 22, 2016 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City by representatives from 175 countries and set country-by-country targets for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions3. The withdrawal turned that background policy story into a top trending topic overnight, with reactions splitting cleanly between condemnation and support2.