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USA election clouds the U.N. climate conference in n Marrakech, Morocco

The two-week conference begins Monday on the eve of the U.S. presidential election, which threatens to doom U.S. participation in global climate agreements if GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump wins. He disputes man-made climate change and has promised to “cancel” or at least “renegotiate” the global agreement.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton supports the Paris deal and the U.N. climate process.

PARIS AGREEMENT Deal takes force under cloud of U.S. election Jean Chemnick, E&E News reporterClimateWire: Friday, November 4, 2016 The landmark Paris Agreement enters into force today as U.S. voters prepare to choose between a candidate who supports the climate deal and one who has said he would cancel it.

The agreement reached by nearly 200 countries outside the French capital last December has taken effect more than three years before its framers expected it to, after nations rushed to submit their ratification documents in just 10 months.

John Morton, director for energy and climate change at the National Security Council, said negotiators will assemble in Marrakech, Morocco, next week for the first U.N. conference since Paris “with a tremendous amount of positive momentum.”

“2016 has been a truly historic year for international climate action,” he told reporters on a call yesterday, referring not only to the early entry into force but also to new deals on aviation emissions and an amendment limiting climate-forcing coolants. Both were long-sought goals of the Obama administration.

Morton and U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing said on the call that parties are looking forward to focusing on the nuts and bolts of the deal after more than two decades devoted to getting it across the finish line.

“The political dynamics here are quite significant,” Pershing said.

Besides this year’s trifecta of climate deals, global markets have also shown an uptick in investment in renewables compared with fossil fuels.

“Those kinds of things are a clear mark of progress,” Pershing said.

The two-week conference begins Monday on the eve of the U.S. presidential election, which threatens to doom U.S. participation in global climate agreements if GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump wins. He disputes man-made climate change and has promised to “cancel” or at least “renegotiate” the global agreement.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton supports the Paris deal and the U.N. climate process……..

Climate talk participants acknowledge that the U.S. election will cast a long shadow at the start of Marrakech. Aziz Mekouar, Morocco’s ambassador of multilateral negotiations, said in a recent interview that it could be a distraction (ClimateWire, Nov. 2). And Pershing’s predecessor, Todd Stern, told E&E News that the U.S. Election Day could prove to be the most important day of the summit……..

While most foreign negotiators remain circumspect about what the election might mean for the Paris Agreement and other issues, international climate advocates have not been.

“People around the world are watching the U.S. elections with keen interest, as decisions taken in Washington, D.C., have impacts far beyond U.S. borders,” said Harjeet Singh of Action Aid. “It’s clear that the candidates have differing views when it comes to climate change, but whoever is elected must make sure that the U.S. sticks to its obligations under the Paris Agreement and increases ambition to tackle climate change.”

Nations are invited to revise and tighten their commitments to Paris by 2020, the final year of the next president’s first term.

Saleemul Huq, a senior fellow at the U.K.-based International Institute for Environment and Development, said poor countries are following the U.S. election with “huge trepidation.”

“From what I can tell of Mr. Trump’s views and personality, his attitude to climate change is the least of the problems the world will have to contend with him in the White House!” he said in an email.

Trump has said at various points throughout the campaign that he might use nuclear weapons, he noted.

“So we probably won’t need to wait for climate change to destroy the world as he may do it even sooner!” http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060045274

November 5, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general