Trump win raises question about United Nations climate deal

As the sun rose over the Atlas mountains, news of Trump’s victory was still sinking in at United Nations climate talks in Marrakech, Morocco, where delegates from nearly 200 countries – including the USA – were meeting for the first time since the landmark deal entered force. The truth is, they weren’t.

“As the president of COP22” – the acronym for the 22nd meeting of the Conference of the Parties – “I am waiting with impatience to encounter the new American administration”, he told AFP.

Still, some at the negotiations expressed fears that the goal agreed in Paris past year of holding global temperature rise to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, and potentially to an ambitious 1.5 degrees Celsius, could now be unachievable if Trump’s election chills momentum for action on climate change.

His comments on climate change have been very discouraging for people who value and are concerned about environmental protection.

“We start by acknowledging reality”.

In spite of this grave eventuality of no climate action from the new U.S. federal government on the horizon, there is still hope that global greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced. “We would like to remind the world that the U.S. can not hold climate action to ransom anymore”.

Solheim added that they “will all wait and see, and judge American politicians on their actions, not on the different statements they made during the campaigns”, in response to Trump’s threats to pull funding from United Nations environmental programs.

However, with the Trump presidency now in place, all seems a bit more uncertain. Besides, it also makes it mandatory to give a notice period of one year for withdrawal – it means the U.S. will not be able to pull out from the global deal within four years.

The U.S. delegation had previously planned to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the amount released in 2005, by between 26 and 28 percent by 2025. Only one year’s notice is required to withdraw from that umbrella agreement, which would effectively end USA involvement in the Paris accord. The pledges are self-determined, and there is no punishment for countries who miss their targets. “It’s not enough to just admit climate change is real, we need a President who will dramatically accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to 100% renewable energy for all”. However, before the two-week conference, USA officials said they expect other countries to stay the course irrespective of what Washington decides, because they see it is in their national interests.

Some countries may pursue their national efforts regardless of the U.S. elections, because they have understood that ambitious climate action is in their own domestic interest. It could enable other countries to abandon their commitments and emit greenhouse gases at much higher rates.

France’s top climate negotiator Laurence Tubiana said this “would be a disaster for the United States economy”. “I think that’s the likely outcome and that’s the message that we’re going to be passing on to the global community”.

In the same conference, Mariana Panuncio-Feldman, senior director of the World Wildlife Fund, recognizes the role of the Obama administration in the Paris agreement.

Over the past few years, developing countries have been making relatively greater efforts than industrialised nations to control GHG emissions.

While there appears to be little question that this election outcome will impact the negotiations in Marrakech, which opened on Monday and run through November 18, it’s too early to say how. If the United States embarks on the major round of new infrastructure construction that Trump has promised, then it would make economic sense for the country to build huge new wind and solar power plants.