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Marrakesh / AFP
UN talks to implement the landmark Paris climate pact opened in Marrakesh on Monday, buoyed by gathering momentum but threatened by the spectre of climate change denier Donald Trump in the White House.
Diplomats from 196 nations are meeting in Morocco to flesh out the planet-saving plan inked in the French capital last December.
“We have made possible what everyone said was impossible,” said French environment minister Segolene Royal at the opening ceremony, in which she handed over stewardship of the climate forum to Moroccan foreign minister Salaheddine Mezouar.
Royal announced that 100 countries have ratified the Paris Agreement, which entered into force last Friday, a record time for an international treaty.
She urged other nations to follow suit by year’s end.
Faced with a crescendo of climate impacts—rising seas, deadly storms, drought and wildfires—the world’s nations have moved quickly since last year to tackle the still-growing menace.
This year is shaping up to be the hottest ever recorded, topping previous highs in 2014 and 2015.
“We have embarked on an effort to change the course of two centuries of carbon-intense development,” said UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa, underscoring the scope of the challenge.
“The peaking of global emissions is urgent,” she told the opening plenary. But as 15,000 negotiators, CEOs and activists settle in for the 12-day talks in Marrakesh, all eyes are on the United States, where voting on Tuesday could thrust Trump into the White House.
When it comes to global warming, the stakes could hardly be higher, US President Barack Obama has warned.
“All the progress we’ve made on climate change”—including the Paris pact, decades in the making—”is going to be on the ballot,” he told TV talk show host Bill Maher on Friday.
Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has vowed to uphold Obama’s domestic energy policies and international climate commitments. Experts in Marrakesh say the Republican candidate cannot carry out his threat to “cancel” the still-fragile accord, but a Trump victory might cripple it.
“It would be a shock, and I hope we don’t see it,” Laurence Tubiana, France’s top climate negotiator said.