Trump win raises question about UN climate deal

While shell-shocked American climate activists in Marrakech cried and embraced, US negotiators declined to speak to reporters about the election’s outcome.

Regardless of the election outcome, Renmin University’s Zheng said he’s confident China will continue its efforts to curb greenhouse gases even without US coordination. They woke to find the global climate process thrown into chaos. But President Barack Obama made climate change a priority and was instrumental in making the Paris accord come together.

Doug Crawford-Brown, director of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research, said: “His election does not bode well for climate or more broadly environmental matters”. In addition, 154 companies in all 50 states (and employing almost 11 million people) have signed the American Business Act on Climate Pledge, expressing their support for USA climate action and the Paris Agreement.

However, Mr Trump’s promise to rapidly get out of the Paris agreement and to push forward with a coal friendly policy have been welcomed by groups representing the fossil fuel industry.

“My only guess at the moment is that the USA will step back partially from its recent position of leadership on climate policy”.

A group of 376 scientists including 30 Nobel laureates sharply rebuked Trump’s campaign comments on climate change in anopen letter in September.

The treaty commits governments to take action to keep global temperatures from rising by 2C above pre-industrial levels and to do their best to keep that rise to less than 1.5 degrees. “I stayed up until 4 a.m. when it became clear that even if Hillary won all the states on the West coast, Trump would win”, Cara Augustenborg, chair of Friends of the Earth Ireland, wrote in a Twitter message to InsideClimate News.

“If he (Trump) withdraws (from the Paris Climate Agreement), it means everything is going backwards and it will not be good for the world”, said Weram Mannasseh Chlanga, a member of the Malawian delegation.

“Japan aims to play a leading role in crafting arrangements that raises transparency in each country’s emission cuts to help accomplish the spirit of the Paris agreement”, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in a statement on Tuesday. Withdrawal could be as simple as removing the us from the 1992 climate convention that set the stage for Paris.

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during an election night rally, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in NY.

He has elucidated his dislike of the regulations brought in by the US Environmental Protection Agency, and has suggested the country would save $100 billion over eight years by cutting all spending on climate change, including renewable energy. “After the more recent fights to kill the Keystone XL pipeline, ban fracking and shut down coal plants, the environmental movement is stronger than we have ever been”. There is no severe penalty for any country that doesn’t meet its targets.

“We remain a nation of honor―our word is our bond”, she said. The agreement just went into force and the U.S.is committed to it for four years, but Trump insiders report The Donald may try to submit the agreement for ratification by an unsympathetic Senate (Obama has maintained ratification isn’t necessary) in efforts to derail US participation. The new administration might submit it to the Senate for ratification, which would likely be denied. The Clean Power Plan is a key component of the United States’ plan to comply with the Paris Agreement.

The election-night surprise occurred at the beginning of the first week of talks in Marrakech.

Environmentalists are already starting to refocus on what they can do without the support of the White House.

Campaigners, climate scientists and politicians have reacted with dismay at the election of a man who has dismissed global warming as a “Chinese hoax” created to make American manufacturing unprofitable to one of the most environmentally-influential positions in the world. This would take the US out of the Paris agreement, and also out of all global efforts to cooperate on climate change action. And so the global community – the worldwide business community, the global policy community – is moving forward and will continue to move forward.

As The Two-Way has reported, India has called on the US and other countries to share technologies that help decrease emissions.