U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and a host of others around the world on Wednesday urged U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to take seriously the threat of climate change, which the Republican has described as a hoax.
“The United Nations will count on the new Administration to strengthen the bonds of international cooperation as we strive together to uphold shared ideals, combat climate change, advance human rights, promote mutual understanding and implement the Sustainable Development Goals to achieve lives of peace, prosperity and dignity for all,” Ban said in a prepared statement Wednesday morning.
“Partnership with the United States is and will remain a keystone of German foreign policy, especially so that we can tackle the great challenges of our time: striving for economic and social well-being, working to develop far-sighted climate policy, pursuing the fight against terrorism, poverty, hunger, and disease, as well as protecting peace and freedom in the world,” Merkel said in a letter to Trump.
The Republican on Tuesday defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in the General Election, securing 279 electoral votes to become the 45th president of the United States. He will take office on Jan. 20, 2017.
His election came two days into the 22nd session of the Conference of Parties (COP22) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Marrakesh, Morocco, where delegates are focused on implementation of the Paris Agreement. Trump has said he intends to “cancel” the accord, under which participating governments committed to taking steps to restrict global temperature rise to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius.
The United States in September ratified the Paris Agreement, which entered into force on Friday. With that milestone, its member nations cannot withdraw for four years. But the commitments in the deal are not legally binding, meaning the Trump administration could simply ignore its predecessor’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent from 2005 levels.
“The climate change question transcends politics and concerns the preservation of our livelihood, dignity and the only planet on which we all live,” Salaheddine Mezouar, Moroccan foreign minister and COP22 president, said in a post-election statement. “We are convinced that all Parties will respect their commitments and stay the course in this collective effort.”
Not everyone shared that opinion. Responses from environmentalists to Trump’s victory ranged from deep worry to vows to fight on regardless of the outcome of the election – often in the same message. The results of Tuesday’s election have killed both the Paris Agreement and U.S. leadership on climate change, Dana Fisher, director of the Program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland, said in an Associated Press article.
“Virtually every country in the world has committed to taking climate action and U.S. leadership is needed to hold them accountable for their promises. How can we hold others accountable if we’re not holding up our end?” Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, told GHG Daily by email.
Perciasepe argued, though, that U.S. nonparticipation would not spell doom for the Paris Agreement. More than 100 other nations have also ratified the deal, including the world’s No. 1 emitter of greenhouse gases, China. All levels of society also appear to be internalizing the message of the accord, from corporate boardrooms to city and state governments, he said.
Meanwhile, clean energy is far cheaper than it once was, thanks to technology and policy developments, while coal remains uncompetitive with cheaper, cleaner-burning natural gas as a power source, said University of Maryland Center for Global Sustainability Director Nathan Hultman.
In a video from COP22, Hultman said little is known about Trump’s actual energy plans. He noted some material on Trump’s campaign website, as well as his tweets on the subject of climate change.
“Those were thoughts from Donald Trump the candidate. What Donald Trump the president will do still remains very much open,” Hultman said. “He may well decide he wants to do more clean energy. He may well decide he wants to double down on coal. But frankly there’s very little information that we have at this point about what his actual concrete policy proposals would be.”
Nothing in Trump’s plans to date suggest his focus will be on climate change or greenhouse gas reductions.
In his 100-day action plan Trump pledged to cancel billions of dollars in payments to U.N. climate change programs and direct the funds to upgrading U.S. water and infrastructure systems. The United States has already paid $500 million of a $3 billion pledge to the Green Climate Fund, which is intended to help developing countries deal with the impact of climate change.
Carbon-emitting fossil fuels, notably coal, are a key component of Trump’s energy planning. He pledged in the 100-day plan to lift curbs on “$50 trillion” worth of coal and other energy reserves. That would include eliminating the current moratorium on leasing of coal leases on federal lands, according to Trump’s energy plan.
Those plans drew a warm post-election response from the fossil fuel industry. “We look forward to working with the new administration on smart energy policies that protect the United States as the global leader in oil and natural gas production, development, and refining, as well as in reducing carbon emissions,” said American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard said in a statement Wednesday.
Trump has also said he will eliminate “job-killing” Obama administration regulations including the Clean Power Plan, which requires states to develop action plans to meet federally set carbon emissions reductions targets, and is key to the U.S. meeting its Paris Agreement commitment to by 2025 reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent below 2005 levels.
The Clean Power Plan is currently under a Supreme Court stay while a massive federal lawsuit against the rule works its way through the federal courts.
“Rolling back regulations is harder than you might think – it’s not a simple stroke of the pen,” Perciasepe said. “If the new administration were to do a rule-making to undo the Clean Power Plan, they’d need to come back with an alternative plan. Under previous Supreme Court rulings, EPA would still be under a legal obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and they’ll be sued if they don’t. You’d be replacing the current legal uncertainty with new legal uncertainty.”