Governors Can't Sign Treaties: What the Democrats Who Flew to COP31 Leave Out About Who Speaks for America

The United States government is not at the United Nations climate summit in Antalya, Turkey. A good number of Democrats are. A 19-member House delegation led by Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois traveled to COP31, which runs through Nov. 20, even though Washington is not taking part in the negotiations, according to an Agence France-Presse report carried by Yahoo News. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island is the lone senator there, and a separate group of more than 120 state and local leaders arrived under the banner of climate groups including America Is All In, the coalition chaired by former Biden White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy.

Fresh off their midterm gains, the visitors have not been shy. Bloomberg reported that leaders of states and cities it said represent more than 60% of the U.S. economy pledged on Thursday to work with United Nations officials to track the country's greenhouse gas emissions, and that Whitehouse said lawmakers would keep the focus on fossil fuels and a possible carbon-pricing system. At a panel on the midterms, Democrats reminded delegates that states and cities have kept pushing renewable energy despite the president, and they vowed to use their new majorities to investigate the administration's climate policies and propose clean-energy bills, Channels Television reported.

Americans are free to travel, speak and lobby wherever they like. But there is a difference between free speech and foreign policy, and the delegations in Antalya are blurring it.

The framers had seen what happens when states conduct their own diplomacy. Under the Articles of Confederation, thirteen voices abroad made one weak country. So the Constitution settled the question in plain words. Article I, Section 10 says no state shall enter into any treaty, alliance or confederation, and that no state shall, without the consent of Congress, enter into any agreement or compact with a foreign power. Article II, Section 2 gives the power to make treaties to the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate and the agreement of two-thirds of the senators present.

Nothing announced in Antalya is a treaty, and to be fair, no one there claims it is. A pledge to share emissions data with U.N. officials is not a binding compact. But the message to the rest of the world is unmistakable: ignore the elected president, because a different America is waiting in the wings. That is exactly the kind of parallel foreign policy the Constitution was written to prevent. Foreign negotiators are being invited to treat governors and mayors as a shadow delegation, when none of them can bind the country to anything.

The United States has an answer on the Paris Agreement, and it came through the proper channel. President Trump began the withdrawal on the first day of his second term, and the exit took effect on Jan. 27, 2026, E&E News reported. Democrats who disagree have a lawful remedy that does not run through Turkey: win elections, write laws, and send them to the president. They will hold majorities in the House and Senate in January. That is where the argument belongs.

The deeper problem with the Antalya message is the suggestion that America is falling behind unless it signs up for the latest pledge. The numbers say otherwise. Total U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions fell 20% from 2005 to 2023 while the population grew 14%, a 30% drop per person, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Most of that decline came from burning less coal for electricity, with more natural gas, along with wind and solar, filling the gap. Axios noted that energy-related emissions fell in every state over that stretch.

In other words, much of America's progress came from cheap, abundant American natural gas, a fossil fuel, at a time when the visitors to Antalya say they want to keep the spotlight on fossil fuels. That progress was not ordered by a U.N. conference, and it did not require surrendering any decision to foreign officials.

Even some of the Democrats in Antalya seem to know that building things at home matters more than speeches abroad. Common Dreams, writing from the left, criticized Whitehouse for urging climate action at COP31 while backing a permitting-reform bill at home that many environmental activists oppose. Faster permits for pipelines, power lines and plants would do more for reliable, affordable energy than any pledge signed in a convention hall.

The Trump administration again chose not to send a delegation, and the summit will wrap up on Nov. 20 without the United States at the table. When the new Congress convenes, Democrats can hold hearings and pass bills, and the president can sign or veto them, as the Constitution prescribes.

That is the point. Scripture tells us that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and our founders built a republic in which the nation speaks to the world with one voice. Governors and mayors should keep their roads paved, their lights on and their power bills low. Treaties belong to the president and the Senate. Americans settled that in 1787, and a week on the Turkish Riviera does not change it.