At various points since Mr. Trump vowed to leave the Paris Agreement, which he has called “job-killing” and “a bad deal,” he has hinted at the possibility of staying in if he could renegotiate better terms.
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But the administration never made serious efforts to discuss with other countries what precise terms of the voluntary pact it would want to revisit. The handful of administration officials who had pressed Mr. Trump to remain in the agreement, such as Gary D. Cohn, the former director of the National Economic Council, and Rex W. Tillerson, the former secretary of state, have left and been replaced by fierce opponents of the accord.
According to three current and former administration officials, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to discuss administration briefings, the White House has not wavered in its plans to send the formal notice of withdrawal to the United Nations and is only internally discussing whether to do it at the earliest possible moment or wait.
Malik Russell, a spokesman for The Climate Mobilization, a youth-led environmental advocacy group, called the decision “insanity” and at odds with popular opinion.
“Just a few weeks ago we had millions of people around the world and in the United States hit the streets at a global climate strike,” he said. “We had students walking out of schools, we had a meeting at the United Nations to address the climate emergency.” He added, “This is really a betrayal of the next generation.”
Mandy Gunasekara, a former senior adviser at the Environmental Protection Agency under Mr. Trump who now runs Energy 45 Fund, a pro-Trump advocacy group, said she visits a different America, where people view a global agreement led by the United Nations as an infringement on American sovereignty.
Leaving the accord, she said, “is celebrated by your average Trump supporter.” Ms. Gunasekara also dismissed the Paris Agreement as an ineffectual effort to curb emissions.