Like the Paris Agreement itself, the US appeal would have been non-binding. However, such international declarations can still have a real impact. They signal to businesses that they should invest in clean energy technologies and set a standard for other countries to follow.

The draft press release was written by one of the United States’ potential partners, according to a senior climate diplomat from one of the countries. It “clearly will not be published” now, said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomacy of climate negotiations.

The project committed countries to developing plans to reduce emissions quickly enough to keep warming to 1.5 degrees. Countries would set targets covering all sectors of their economy, such as agriculture, aviation and transport, as well as all greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons.

The top climate diplomat said the United States informed his country last weekend that the initiative was no longer being pursued.

Even though the political situation in the United States has changed dramatically since Trump’s election victory, the decision to abandon the declaration may also reflect the ambivalence of those the Biden team has approached about rejoining the deal. The European Union, for example, is a traditional ally of the United States on climate action, but it struggling to meet February deadline to submit new objectives. The EU executive is locked in a months-long transition period during which no substantial new political commitments are being made.

A European negotiator, who also remained anonymous because the negotiations were considered private, said the United States had floated the idea of ​​a declaration before the climate conference with “a large number of parties, but never insisted that it become something more.”