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treaty
UN Chief Guterres Warns of ‘Imminent Financial Collapse’ as Trump Pulls Funding
As the world's largest economy, the US provided nearly a quarter of the UN's funding. That is, until earlier this month, when Trump stripped hundreds of millions of dollars from dozens of treaties.
Jan 30, 2026
Weeks after President Donald Trump withdrew the US from dozens of United Nations organizations, the UN's chief warns that the UN is at risk of an "imminent financial collapse."
"The crisis is deepening, threatening program delivery and risking financial collapse. And the situation will deteriorate further in the near future," UN Secretary-General António Guterres wrote in a letter to ambassadors dated January 28, according to a Friday report from Reuters.
While he did not reference the United States explicitly, Guterres called out the fact that "decisions not to honor assessed contributions that finance a significant share of the approved regular budget have now been formally announced," which almost certainly referenced Trump's pullout from at least 66 international treaties earlier this month, including 31 within the UN system.
With the stroke of a pen, Trump reneged on the US commitment to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which it has been part of for more than 30 years. He also took the US out of the UN International Law Commission, the UN Democracy Fund, UN Oceans, UN Women, and dozens of other global bodies, deeming them "contrary to the interests of the United States."
As the world's largest economy, the US was the largest source of funding for the UN, providing 22% of its regular and peacekeeping budgets as of 2025—about $820 million per year.
The largest single financial cut as a result of the US pullout was the termination of dozens of grants worth approximately $377 million for the UN Population Fund, which focuses on family planning and preventing maternal mortality and sexual violence in developing nations. The organization is estimated to have prevented 39,000 maternal deaths and 18 million unwanted pregnancies in 2024, according to an annual report.
Warning that cash could run out by July, Guterres said, “Either all member states honor their obligations to pay in full and on time–or member states must fundamentally overhaul our financial rules to prevent an imminent financial collapse."
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Celebrities Join Greenpeace in Demanding Biden Go Big on Global Plastics Treaty
"Will you be the president who helped put an end to the plastic pollution crisis, or someone who let it spiral further out of control?"
May 18, 2023
Actors known for their environmental advocacy—including Jane Fonda, Jason Momoa, Joaquin Phoenix, Susan Sarandon, and Laura Dern—joined Greenpeace USA on Thursday in an open letter to U.S. President Joe Biden urging his administration to "protect the planet from plastic pollution" and slash carbon emissions "by supporting a strong global plastics treaty."
"We appreciate your leadership in securing a global oceans treaty that creates a path to protecting 30% of our oceans by 2030," the letter's signers told Biden. "Winning the treaty was truly a historic moment, one of the greatest environmental achievements in history."
"We're calling on President Biden to put aside fossil fuel and plastics industry interests and lead us on the path that prioritizes human health, biodiversity, and our communities."
"At the end of May, delegates from around the world will convene in Paris for the second round of negotiations on a global plastics treaty," the letter continues, referring to talks hosted by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
"While you have signaled support for this treaty, the U.S. position is not yet strong enough," the letter argues. "Currently, the U.S. is not calling for a cap on plastic production—which is the only real way to stop plastic pollution. In 2021, the U.S. only recycled a mere 5% of plastics produced."
The letter continues:
Plastics are polluting and harmful at every stage of their life cycle—from extraction to disposal. Ninety-nine percent of plastics come from fossil fuels; cutting plastic production will make a significant dent in carbon emissions. There are communities living next to refineries and petrochemical facilities who are bearing the combined brunt of the climate and plastic crises. People living near these facilities—overwhelmingly people of color—face higher rates of cancer, asthma, and adverse birth outcomes.
"President Biden, you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help our climate, our oceans, and our communities this year by supporting a strong and ambitious global plastics treaty," the signers asserted. "The decision you make on this critical issue will help define your legacy—will you be the president who helped put an end to the plastic pollution crisis, or someone who let it spiral further out of control? We're calling on you to do the right thing."
Other actors who signed the letter include Rosana Arquette, Alec Baldwin, Ed Begley, Ted Danson, Piper Perabo, Kyra Sedgwick, William Shatner, and Shailene Woodley.
Greenpeace is proposing a seven-point plan for the global plastics treaty:
- Achieve immediate, significant reductions in plastic production, establishing a pathway to end virgin plastic production;
- Promote a shift to refill- and reuse-based economies, creating jobs and standards in new reuse industries and supporting established zero-waste practices;
- Support a just transition for workers across the plastics supply chain, prioritizing waste pickers who collect approximately 60% of all plastic that is collected for recycling globally;
- Promote noncombustion technologies for plastic stockpiles and waste disposal;
- Institute the "polluter pays" principle for plastic waste management and for addressing the health and environmental costs throughout the plastics life cycle;
- Significantly improve regulation, oversight, safety, and worker protections for existing recycling facilities; and
- Require transparency about chemicals in plastics and eliminate all toxic additives and chemicals used in the plastics life cycle.
"Many environmental groups and frontline communities are disappointed with the U.S.' current position on the treaty, as it does not call for a cap on plastic production and instead focuses on recycling," Greenpeace USA senior plastics campaigner Lisa Ramsden said in a statement.
"Recycling will never solve the plastic waste problem," Ramsden added. "We must stop plastic waste at its source, and we're calling on President Biden to put aside fossil fuel and plastics industry interests and lead us on the path that prioritizes human health, biodiversity, and our communities."
On Tuesday, UNEP published a report contending that global plastic pollution can be reduced by 80% by 2040 if countries and corporations enact major changes using existing technologies. However, the report was criticized by some environmentalists for promoting the burning of plastic waste.
UNEP has also come under fire in recent days for issuing just one pass per organization attending the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations in Paris.
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175 Nations to Agree on 'Historic' Plastic Pollution Treaty
The treaty will be "an insurance policy for this generation and future ones, so they may live with plastic and not be doomed by it," said one official.
Mar 02, 2022
The vast majority of the world's countries agreed Wednesday to forge a legally-binding global treaty restricting plastic pollution, in a move one official said demonstrated "multilateral cooperation at its best."
Negotiators representing 175 nations met over the past week in Nairobi, Kenya to discuss a joint proposal originally presented by Rwandan and Peruvian representatives.
The countries reached an agreement Wednesday to forge a treaty by 2024, with the details of the pact to be decided in upcoming talks.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said the agreement marked an "historic day in the campaign to beat plastic pollution," which was responsible for more greenhouse gas pollution in 2015 than all the world's airplanes combined, according to one study.
"Plastic pollution has grown into an epidemic," said Espen Barth Eide, president of the U.N. Environment Assembly and Norway's minister for climate and the environment. "With today's resolution we are officially on track for a cure."
The resolution calls on countries to hammer out a final treaty which could ban single-use plastics. Making up the vast majority of all plastic products in the world, only 9% of single-use plastic is ever recycled while 79% is incinerated.
"This landmark decision sets the stage for an all-inclusive approach to resolve the plastic pollution crisis."
As Common Dreams reported in January, scientists believe at the current rate of plastic pollution buildup the weight of plastics in the world's oceans "could exceed the collective weight of all fish in the ocean."
The production, incineration, and disposal of plastics in landfills all produce greenhouse gas emissions and release toxic compounds.
The agreement reached on Wednesday recognized "the importance of promoting sustainable design of products and materials so that they can be reused, remanufactured, or recycled and therefore retained in the economy for as long as possible along with the resources they are made of, as well as minimizing the generation of waste, which can significantly contribute to sustainable production and consumption of plastics."
"This landmark decision sets the stage for an all-inclusive approach to resolve the plastic pollution crisis," said Von Hernandez, global coordinator for the grassroots movement Break Free From Plastic. "Receiving the recognition that this problem needs to be addressed across the whole plastics value chain is a victory for groups and communities who have been confronting the plastic industry's transgressions and false narratives for years."
According to Break Free From Plastic, 75% of people polled in a recent global survey believe single-use plastic should be banned.
Negotiators said the final treaty will be modeled on the Paris climate agreement of 2015, demanding that countries set legally-binding targets to change how products are packaged, improve recycling systems, and assist the Global South in addressing plastic pollution.
"Africa is not a major producer of chemicals or plastics," Tadesse Amera , co-chair of the International Pollutants Elimination Networkin Ethiopia, told the New York Times.
Yet countries including the U.S. export more than one billion pounds of plastic waste to countries all over the world. The U.S.--the second-largest plastic producer in the world after China--has yet to sign onto a 2020 agreement limiting plastic waste exports.
"Some legal obligations arising out of a new international legally binding instrument will require capacity-building and technical and financial assistance in order to be effectively implemented by developing countries and countries with economies in transition," the resolution stated.
The agreement also recognizes microplastics, which build up over time in the world's oceans, drinking water, and rainfall as a driver of pollution.
"This is the most significant environmental multilateral deal since the Paris accord," said Inger Andersen, executive director of UNEP. "It is an insurance policy for this generation and future ones, so they may live with plastic and not be doomed by it."
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