President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to leave the Paris climate change deal hung heavy over talks in Marrakesh, Morocco, the morning after the elections.
The talks in are meant to pave the way for implementing the deal to keep global temperatures from warming above 2 degrees Celsius by the middle of the century. But without the U.S. at the table, the plan could crumble quickly.
Secretary of State John Kerry will be jetting in on Tuesday to address the conference, which by then should be marred by deep uncertainty over the path ahead for the deal. On the ground, those attending the talks voiced some optimism that Trump would soon find out that it may prove less worthwhile to pull out of the Paris deal.
“Now that the election campaign has passed and the realities of leadership settle in, I expect he will realize that climate change is a threat to his people and to whole countries which share seas with the U.S., including my own,” said Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine, according to the Washington Post.
“I’m sure that the rest of the world will continue to work on it,” said Morocco’s chief negotiator Aziz Mekouar.
Activists were a little less optimistic.
“If the U.S. pulls out of this, and is seen as going as a rogue nation on climate change, that will have implications for everything else on President Trump’s agenda when he wants to deal with foreign leaders,” said Alden Meyer from the Washington-based activist group Union of Concerned Scientists at a press conference this morning in Morocco, according to the news site DeSmog. “And I think he will soon come to understand that.”
Dana Fisher, director of the Program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland, was far more blunt in her assessment, according to the Washington Post. “The Paris Agreement and any U.S. leadership in international climate progress is dead,” she said.
“I don’t think he’s necessarily anti-environmental, but he’s also promising to really spruce up economic growth and build a lot of infrastructure,” said Timmons Roberts, professor of sociology at Brown University, according to DeSmog. “So will he build the fossil fuel structure of the status quo or will he build something new? These are open questions.”
Other country representatives were sticking to the narrative that because the Paris deal has entered into force, which occurred on Friday, it will be difficut for Trump and a GOP-controlled government to easily leave it.
Ahead of the election, Chinese officials warned Trump there would be deep consequences if he means to oppose the Paris deal.
“If Trump were to insist on doing things his own way, then he would pay a heavy price both politically and diplomatically,” said Zou Ji, who serves as second in command at China’s National Center for Climate Change Strategy, said Friday. “The U.S. would suffer the greatest harm and of course, the rest of the world would also be implicated.”
