The Guardian View On Climate Change: Trump Spells Disaster

The Guardian - Editorial

Delegates have gathered in Marrakech to celebrate ratification of the Paris deal on climate change. But the US elections risk turning it into a wake

Indigenous people from the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests protest outside the UN climate change conference in Marrakech, Morocco. Photograph: Youssef Boudlal/Reuters

Reaching a global agreement on climate change took more than 20 years of tortuous negotiations. Signed just under a year ago, the insufficient but workable Paris agreement at last constructed a legally binding framework for the principle of cutting carbon emissions. It was to be the foundation of a sustained ratcheting up of ambition that would hold global warming below 2C. Last Tuesday night, as one by one from east coast to west the United States went Republican red, that progress was wiped out.
Donald Trump is the first self-declared climate denier to lead of one of the world’s biggest emitters. Even President George W Bush, though he surrounded himself with sceptics, did not publicly disavow climate science. He even managed a few helpful moves. But Mr Trump has pledged to unpick the Paris agreement. In Marrakech, where delegates are meeting for the first time since Paris, they are putting a brave face on proceedings. But they know the outlook is bleaker than it has been since the collapse of the Copenhagen talks in 2009.
Mr Trump cannot instantly extricate the US from the Paris accord: legal technicalities means withdrawal would take four years, although he may try to speed up the process. That, though, is just legal stuff. His chilling effect on climate negotiations has already begun. That is because these talks rely as much – if not more – on trust, good faith and political will as they do on law and legal process. Remember, for instance, that only the framework of the Paris pact is legally binding, not each country’s commitments on greenhouse gas emissions.
Trust and goodwill can go a long way: the personal charm offensive that President Obama launched on Beijing when he made climate change a legacy issue led to the historic joint statement without which the Paris deal could never have been made. The prospect of its success drew the presence of almost all major world leaders to Paris for the launch of the talks last December, sending an unmistakable signal to their negotiating teams. Now, even if the US remains technically a signatory for a while longer, all this is lost from inauguration day in January.
With a hostile US, China may cool on its commitments, or at least take a tougher stance, as it has done before. India was already a reluctant participant and the change in the US position is likely only to make its grumbles louder.
Games of “what if” are irresistible at this stage. As delegates started to gather in Marrakech, the world appeared on the brink of an unprecedented phase of stability. The Paris agreement had come into force within a year of its agreement, an astonishing achievement after the discord and mistrust that had threatened all the preceding meetings and even the whole UN climate process. But now that huge achievement may be shattered. Diplomats are working furiously to reassure countries that the departure of the US would not mean the end of the road and the process can continue.
And it is not only the global talks. In the US, too, more climate-unfriendly actions from a Republican-dominated Congress, like changes to clean energy subsidies, are on the cards, while President Obama’s clean power plan to regulate power stations is under grave threat. Mr Trump’s proposed leader of the Environmental Protection Agency is a prominent climate sceptic, Myron Ebell, a man once described by a senior George W Bush aide as “crazy Myron”.
Finally, a right-leaning supreme court may put a brake on future legal challenges from environmental groups. Taken with Mr Trump’s support for coal, US emissions may soon be back firmly on their upward track. And if he really wants to “cancel” Paris, Trump could even pull the US out of the UN framework convention on climate change, the foundation treaty under which Paris was signed. If he did, the world would lose its global forum for taking fair and effective action on greenhouse gases and adapting to climate change.
Withdrawal may be a step too far even for Trump, for the treaty gives the US a seat at the table that pragmatists would rather retain, even if they try to saw the legs off.
For delegates in Marrakech, the only source of optimism may be their years of experience in holding the talks together. But they cannot do it on their own. In the end, it may all come down to scientifically literate Republicans in Congress. They must be the voice of the two-thirds of Americans who understand the link between human activity and global warming – and want to break it.

Links

• Why the media must make climate change a vital issue for President Trump
• Trump victory may embolden other nations to obstruct Paris climate deal
• Donald Trump presidency a 'disaster for the planet', warn climate scientists
• Trump seeking quickest way to quit Paris climate agreement, says report

Climate Lawsuit Awaits President Trump

Climate Central - John Upton

A sweeping climate change lawsuit filed against the Obama Administration will move forward, a judged ruled on Thursday, setting up an extraordinary legal battle between environmentalists and President-elect Donald Trump.
The lawsuit claims the rights of 21 young Americans have been unconstitutionally violated because the federal government has allowed greenhouse gas pollution to be pumped into the atmosphere for 50 years, despite knowing the risks, “resulting in a dangerous destabilizing climate system.”

President-elect Donald Trump greeting supporters at an election night rally in New York. Credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst​

Despite the preliminary nature and uncertain future of the unusual case, Thursday’s ruling was celebrated by activists and lauded by legal scholars for going further than any other ruling on climate change in American legal history.
Federal government lawyers argued that the lawsuit should be tossed out. On Thursday, as climate scientists and experts were trying to regroup following Trump’s win, District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the lawsuit “adequately alleged infringement of a fundamental right” and could proceed. During the campaign, Trump denied that climate change is real.
The lawsuit doesn’t allege violations of laws. “They are not arguing any specific tax break, royalty rate, or contract runs afoul of an agency's governing regulations,” Aiken wrote in the ruling. The complaint goes further, claiming the government’s overall actions in allowing the release of dangerous climate pollution violates the plaintiffs’ rights.
“The prospect of a Supreme Court with one or more Trump appointees does not instill confidence,” said Michael Gerrard, a professor at Columbia Law School. “But this kind of litigation is all the more important in the Trump era.”
What had been a legal problem for a federal government that prided itself on being a leader on climate action is about to become a legal problem for the administration of a president who has called climate change “a hoax.”
“President Trump and his administration will be substituted in as the defendants in the case — I think,” said Julia Olson, executive director and chief legal counsel for Our Children’s Trust, the nonprofit behind the case. “During the next two and half months, Obama has an opportunity to come to the settlement table and stop fighting this case in court.”
The lawsuit is moving forward at a time when experts are projecting a sudden rise in the use of lawsuits to try to force American governments to tackle global warming and regulate climate pollution.

Solar panels in Nevada. Credit: BlackRockSolar/flickr

This year will be third in a row to set a global heat record, with warming exacerbating wildfires, floods and heat waves. An abrupt rise in temperatures helped propel world leaders to unite to tackle global warming at the United Nations — unity that’s suddenly been threatened by Trump’s election.
“True, the results here may not survive later procedural steps in the case, and, yes, the odds of being upheld on appeal are low,” said Emily Hammond, a professor at George Washington University Law School. “But this case is prescient in light of the changes the presidential election will bring.”
President Obama drove the U.S. to become a leader on global climate action, and his diplomats helped craft the historic Paris climate agreement, which was adopted at United Nations climate talks a year ago. Under the pact, countries made voluntary pledges explaining how they would tackle warming in the years ahead.
America’s ongoing involvement with the pact is now uncertain. Many of the climate rules written by Obama’s administration to help fulfil its international climate promises were crafted to protect them from being blocked by Republicans in Congress — and could quickly unravel under Trump and a Republican-led Senate and House.
“We can expect more climate-related litigation in the absence of regulatory leadership at EPA,” Hammond said.
The White House, Congress and most state legislatures will soon be controlled by Republicans, which are opposed to efforts to protect the climate. Trump supported climate action before he ran for president, but on the campaign trail he vowed to wind back environmental regulations and exit the Paris agreement.
Since Tuesday’s election, environmental groups have been saying they intend to try to convince Trump of the economic benefits of climate action. Failing that, they intend to fight his administration tirelessly — just as they waged protracted battles against the administration of President George W. Bush.
Many of those battles will be fought in court. Prominent climate activist Bill McKibben on Friday welcomed the development in the Oregon case, saying it will be “one of the first times” that climate change gets inside a courtroom as an issue.
“Given the election, a courtroom may be the last place left where science will get a hearing,” McKibben said.

Links

• Trump Win Throws Global Climate Action Into Disarray
• States May Drive U.S. Climate Policy Under Trump
• ‘Critical Moment’ as UN Climate Talks Resume
• Climate Experts Weigh in on Trump’s Election Win
• Climate Change Doesn’t Really Care Who Was Elected

Trump Translates Into Climate Confusion At Marrakesh

AFR - Jennifer Hewett

Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg. Andrew Meares

A Trump White House ensures the mood at the international climate change conference in Marrakesh this week is dominated by confusion and apprehension about US intentions.
 Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg says his goal in Marrakesh is to maintain the momentum established in Paris last year that he describes as a "watershed agreement" given more than 190 countries agreed to reduce their emissions.
More than 100 of them have now ratified the Paris agreement with Australia doing so last week in the immediate aftermath of the US election.
Frydenberg concedes "a Trump presidency has raised real issues about how the US will handle climate change issues".

Environmental activist Bethany Hindmarsh, 26, cries during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump at the Climate Conference, known as COP22, in Marrakesh, Morocco, last week. AP

"No doubt top of mind will be a discussion about the US election and comments by Donald Trump about energy policy," he says, while insisting he remains hopeful about the momentum continuing.

Yet the power shift in the US is already complicating internal Coalition politics in Australia, given the antagonism of many in the party to any commitments on emissions reductions and the transition to much greater use of renewable energy.
Craig Kelly, chairman of the parliamentary committee for energy and environment, greeted the election of Donald Trump with a typically blunt prediction, for example: "Paris is cactus".
As the government's standard bearer, Frydenberg's role is to try to divert that sort of simmering Coalition sentiment by increasing his attacks on the risks to jobs and to the economy of Labor's policy. That includes Bill Shorten's commitment to a much higher renewable energy target than the government – 50 per cent by 2030.
And there's no more talk of Trump as a dropkick. Instead, he politely points out it takes four years for a country to formally remove itself from the Paris agreement. "Even though the US produces 16 per cent of the world's emissions, the second largest emitter after China (at 22 per cent), no single country can unilaterally end the agreement," he says. "What will be critical will be to see how China, India, Japan and others react to what America may or may not do."

Of course, just what a Trump White House will do – as opposed to what candidate Trump said – remains the big global question mark.
Trump's 100 day "plan" includes getting rid of his predecessor's "Climate Action Plan" and environment regulations, stopping payments to various United Nations programs aimed at tackling global warming and "cancelling" the Paris agreement.
China will certainly be watching the results closely. Xi Jin Ping and Barack Obama made much of their 2014 climate change agreement whereby the Chinese government promised to make its best efforts to "peak" its emissions by 2030 and have 20 per cent of its energy needs from renewables by 2020. The US had promised to cut emissions by 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2025, in large part by regulation and restrictions on coal-fired power.
Most China experts believe it is in China's interests to maintain and perhaps even strengthen its own commitments – and indeed to use a Trump presidency to demonstrate China is a more responsible global leader than the US.

That prospect alone may help moderate Trump's campaign views by the time he takes office in January. But he is certainly promising to be a strong supporter of the fossil fuel industry, especially coal, to abolish Obama's style of environmental regulations and to maintain low energy prices as vital for bringing back US manufacturing jobs.
Frydenberg's domestic game plan includes promoting the Coalition approach as a balanced policy that delivers environmental results and the transition to a low carbon future but also guarantees energy security at affordable cost.
That means the political angle is to condemn Labor for being willing to jeopardise existing jobs in the coal and manufacturing industries while risking the stability of the system due to pushing in too much renewable energy too quickly.
"Coal will continue to be a critical component of the energy mix domestically and globally for years to come," he says.

The government believes the national debate has changed after the South Australian blackout and the announced closure of coal-fired generator Hazelwood in Victoria. That's still a tricky message to articulate given the popularity of renewable energy.
So Frydenberg seized on Bill Shorten's declaration that Labor will heed the lessons of places like Detroit  and focus on the need to "buy Australian, build Australian and employ Australians".  He accuses the Opposition Leader of trying to have it both ways.
"On the one hand, [he is] pretending to support Australian industry and on the other pushing policies that drive energy prices higher by 'encouraging' the closure of coal-fired power stations and committing to a 50 per cent renewable energy target that costs jobs and investment," Frydenberg insists. "His selling-out of blue collar workers in the regions in order to win green votes in the city will come back to haunt him."
Frydenberg instead sells the bipartisan policy of a 23.5 per cent renewable energy target by 2020 as well as the commitment to reduce emissions by 26 per cent to 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.

Even reaching that 2020 renewable energy target will be a "stretch", he says, due to the relatively low level of investment in new generation so far.
But that leads directly to widespread criticism of the lack of a national energy plan. Frydenberg established the Finkel review, reporting next year, to try to get agreement with the states on consistent policies rather than the current mishmash, compounded by different ambitious Labor state government renewable energy targets.
Australia, he says, takes its national targets seriously but wants to reach them at the lowest cost. The political cost remains a daily tussle.  

Links

• MARRAKECH: Dozens of heads of State and Government to attend UN climate conference
• Africa takes centre stage at Marrakesh, urges speedy climate change action
• COP22: World leaders prepare response to Trump administration climate scepticism
• Trump seeks global climate exit
• Trump win threatens climate funds for poor
• Even the new US president can't Trump clean energy

'Really Remarkable': Finally Some Good News In The Battle Against Climate Change

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Emissions of greenhouse gases are falling in the two biggest polluting economies, China and the US. Photo: Jim Cole

Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry have stabilised for a third year in a row, in a shift that will reduce the risks of dangerous climate change if the trend continues, researchers say.
CO2 emissions from the two sources last year were steady at about 9.9 gigatonnes, slowing from a pace that had reached as much as 3 per cent a year during the past decade, according to the Global Carbon Project.
"It's really remarkable," said Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project at the CSIRO. "We're moving from an era of super-fast growth in emissions that we saw in the 2000s."
The recent plateau in fossil fuel-related emissions, though, wasn't enough to prevent an acceleration of atmospheric levels of CO2 last year. And while the pause is welcomed, its longevity may be shortlived as pollution from nations such as India increases.
Still, on the positive front, emissions from energy and industry fell in both China and the US - the world's two biggest polluters - even with expanding economies. Both nations placed curbs on coal-fired power and boosted renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power.
The news on emissions - which excludes other sources such as land-clearing - will cheer negotiators meeting in Morocco this week to build on commitments made in the Paris climate agreement signed last December.
Also revealed on Monday, however, was the less promising news that 2016 will "very likely" be declared the hottest year on record.
Global temperatures for the first nine months of the year are running at about 1.2 degrees above the pre-industrial level, closing in on the 1.5-2 degrees warming target agreed to in Paris, the World Meteorological Organization said in a separate report.

So why are temperatures still rising?
Driving the rise in temperatures is the increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Those levels are continuing to rise even as emissions from energy and industry have flat-lined for three years.
The CO2 increase was about 3 parts per million last year - the highest since records began - and 2016 is likely to be at least as fast, CSIRO researchers said last month.

Sunset for Hazelwood, Australia's dirties power station, will come next March. Photo: Matt Davidson

The most recent spurt is the result of other CO2 sources increasing but also natural variability, as the globally significant El Nino event peaked in 2015.
During El Nino years, wind patterns shift in the Pacific, reducing rainfall in regions such as Indonesia and Australia.
Not only is there less take-up of CO2 by plants during such years because of the hotter and drier conditions, but forest fires can be larger.
The Indonesian fires alone were estimated to releasing about 16 million tonnes of CO2 emissions each day in October 2015 - or more than the entire US economy, while they lasted the World Bank estimates.
A switch away from El Nino to La Nina conditions in the Pacific should slow the rise of CO2 concentrations from natural sources in the next year to so. Still, it may not be long before human contributions again pick up, researchers said.

Economics v politics
Still, signs that Chinese and American emissions from fossil fuels are dropping will give some heart to those worried that a Trump presidency in the US will unwind efforts to curb such pollution and also prompt other nations to reduce their ambition.
Donald Trump has said he would "cancel" America's support for the Paris deal and encourage more coal, gas and oil production.
US emissions fell 2.5 per cent in 2015 and are forecast to drop another 1.7 per cent this year.
Dr Canadell said the President-elect's pledge to revive the coal industry would likely run up against lower-cost gas supplies, while renewable energy costs continue to decline.
"Even if you take the foot off the climate policy pedal, you won't change the trend because it's being driven by economics," he said.
The tale of China is also one of sinking emissions - down 0.7 per cent in 2015 and likely to drop another 0.5 per cent this year - although the drivers are less clear.
"It is hard to say whether the Chinese slowdown is due to a successful and smooth restructuring of the Chinese economy or a sign of economic instability," said Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo and a co-author of the study.
"Nevertheless, the unexpected reductions in Chinese emissions give hope that the world's biggest emitter can deliver much more ambitious emission reductions".
If Chinese emissions stabilise, global growth may return as additional pollution in developing countries such as India exceeds cuts in the US, European Union and elsewhere, Dr Peters said.
"In fact, the emission pledges in the Paris Agreement lead to growth in global emissions of up to 1 per cent per year until 2030," he said.
India's emissions from fuel use and industry rose more than 5 per cent last year, and are likely to continue to increase as India looks to double domestic coal production by 2020, the Global Carbon Project said. (See chart below of major nations' emissions.)

The Turnbull government has pledged to cut Australia's 2005-level emissions by 26-28 per cent by 2030, and last week ratified the Paris accord.

Record heat
The latest report by the World Meteorological Organization said the record global warmth so far in 2016 included India and Russia reporting their hottest January-September periods.
Boosted by the El Nino, the rate of increases in global sea-levels has surged, rising 15 millimetres during the November 2014-February 2016 period.
While sea-levels are "remained fairly stable" since February as the El Nino in the Pacific faded, the recent increase was a marked acceleration from the post-1993 trend of 3 to 3.5mm per year, the WMO said.
The extent of Antarctic and Arctic sea ice is also currently running at record low levels for this time of year, researchers say.

Links

• Warming up: new study points to a more sensitive climate to rising CO2
• 'Everyone is vulnerable': Trump presidency a risk to climate science
• 'Quite sobering': How 2015's record heat could become the 'new normal'

'Everyone Is Vulnerable': Trump Presidency A Risk To Australia's Climate Science

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

A Trump presidency in the US could have serious impacts on Australia's climate science and other research, with fears the cuts could be "CSIRO times 50".
Donald Trump's pledge to end US participation in the Paris climate agreement and expectations he will appoint climate change denier Myron Ebell to a key environment role has scientists bracing for fallout.

The state of our climate in 2016
Australia is already experiencing an increase in extreme conditions from climate change - and it's projected to get worse.

Australia's climate research relies on many US programs, some of which have been targeted by the Republican-controlled Congress. President Barack Obama resisted cuts to agencies such as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration but he will leave office on January 20.
At the extreme end, a Trump administration could jeopardise global climate efforts by withholding access to data that underpins climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said David Karoly, an atmospheric scientist at Melbourne University.
"All the [Coupled Model Intercomparison Project] data is stored on US data servers," Professor Karoly said, adding the US is the only place storing all that information.
Any interruption could mean the next IPCC assessment potentially doesn't proceed, which "would be an enormous setback for climate science", he said.
Others, though, noted that while earlier model data were housed on servers belonging to the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Lab, an international Earth System Grid Federation now shares the load. The network is led by the US but has nodes elsewhere, including in Australia.
Christian Jakob, a Monash University professor who attended a recent CMIP gathering in the US, is less pessimistic about an interruption to data access. Still, future phases of the modellin could be affected if other nations didn't step up to fill any US void.

Australia relies on US science programs for key weather and climate inforamation. Photo: NASA

Of  more pressing concern is whether expensive satellite programs run by NOAA and NASA get axed, a move that would damage not only climate modelling but "close cousins" the short-term weather forecasts, he said.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO and universities rely on NOAA to supply their key ocean model. Cuts "would have implications for us very directly", Professor Jakob said. "Everyone is vulnerable."

Republican president-elect is a widely seen as a climate change denier. Photo: Gerry Broome

Several scientists noted US counterparts had rallied to the defence of CSIRO research when management earlier this year proposed slashing as many as two-thirds of its climate scientists. Protests helped prompt a reversal of almost all the cuts.
"Everything's connected - if you remove a piece in one corner, you'd better do a careful analysis of what the consequences are," Professor Jakob said, adding the CSIRO cuts were "an actual intent, but with the US we're speculating".

Tropical cyclones Lam and Marcia over Australia in February 2015 in imagery supplied from the US. Photo: NOAA

Andy Pitman, director of ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at UNSW, said the US accounts for about 40 per cent of global climate research, on a par with Europe.
"Any risk to [the US share] is just hugely worrying," Professor Pitman said, adding China is one nation rapidly expanding research although not fast enough to fill a major US retreat.
Ironically, it was China that Mr Trump earlier singled out to blame for the "hoax" of climate change.

IMAGE

Axel Timmermann, from the University of Hawaii, said US researchers feared "a brute force against climate science" that would have consequences ranging from the ability to predict El Ninos and bushfires to heatwave.
"It's like driving in a tunnel and switching off your headlights - not a wise thing to do," Professor Timmermann said. "It has some elements of going back to a very anti-science, medieval mindset that is not only detrimental to the scientists but also the general public."
And as Professor Pitman noted, "the laws of physics don't change just because Trump has become president."

Links

• 'Quite sobering': How 2015's record heat could become the 'new normal'
• And yes, the sky really is falling because of climate change
• Donald Trump may face young people suing over global warming
• Polar heatwaves throw up a surprising outcome
• Ignoring Trump election, Australia ratifies Paris climate pact
• 'Quite sobering': How 2015's record heat could become the 'new normal'
• 'We will grieve over the avoidable human tragedy': Why cutting emissions is our problem

Environmentalists Launch 'Emergency' Campaign To Persuade Trump Climate Change Is Real Amid Fears Of 'Planetary Disaster'

The Independent - Ian Johnston | Joe Watts | Ashley Cowburn

US President-elect is 'not only mad and bad but he's also dangerous', UK politician says

Mr Trump was described as 'dangerous' by Lib Dem leader Tim Farron. AP

One of the biggest ever environmental campaigns has been launched by a group of the world's most eminent scientists and environmentalists in an 'emergency' effort to convince the President-elect, Donald Trump, that global warming is real before he becomes US President in January.
Mr Trump, who described climate science as a "hoax" perpetrated by China, has already appointed a prominent climate change denier, Myron Ebell, to a key environmental post and promised that he will rip up the landmark Paris Agreement climate deal when he enters the White House. Climate sceptics in Australia crowed that the Paris Agreement was "cactus" – meaning finished – following his election this week.
Among those now preparing for arguably the most important campaign ever designed to change the mind of a single individual in modern history is the Sierra Club – an environmental group founded by legendary conservationist John Muir in 1892, which now has more than two million members and supporters globally.
Visitors to the club's website are now being urging to "make an emergency donation". "We are not licking our wounds, we are preparing for the fights to come. Fight Back Against Trump," it explains.
Meanwhile the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is bringing together leading scientists from across the US to urge Mr Trump to listen to the evidence, rather than accept the testimonies of conspiracy theorists and fossil fuel lobbyists. Dr Rush Holt, the chief executive of the AAAS, told The Independent: "During the campaign, Trump was all over the place, saying different things about different issues at different times, and so it is hard to know really what he will do.
"There are troubling signs in that he has appointed as a key member of his transition team a person who is, I guess I'd say, antagonistic to restricting carbon emissions [Ebell]. That's not a good sign. AAAS, for more than half a century, has been outspoken to policymakers and the public about the risks of human-induced climate change and the need to take action to mitigate it.
"I think we will be urging him to look at the evidence even before his first day because climate change is a major, historic, global problem and he should be looking at that even now."
Dr Holt, who described climate change as a "looming emergency", said Mr Trump might be swayed by the financial implications of removing the US from the signatories of the Paris Agreement or otherwise abandoning efforts to cut emissions.
"We would condemn such moves and say that such action would put our country and our friends and competitors around the world in dangerous situations and that climate change is already costly in lives and dollars. If strong action isn't taken, it will be only more so by all estimates, more costly than the cost of addressing it," he said.
"Maybe he [Trump] would respond to arguments of dollars and cents."
Climate scientists have already warned of the dangers of having a climate denier in the White House.
Professor Michael Mann told The Independent that President Trump's term of office – coupled with new research suggesting the Earth is more sensitive to greenhouse gases than previously thought – could mean "game over" for hopes of preventing global warming from entering dangerous territory.
And Dr Kevin Trenberth, of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, described the coming Trump presidency as "an unmitigated disaster for the planet".
John Coequyt, the Sierra Club's director of federal and international climate campaigns, predicted environmentalists would take to the streets. "I at least know there will be lots and lots of protests on this with the goal to change his position on it," he told The Independent.
"I think we'll put together the largest defensive legislative campaign the progressive community has ever put together in Washington DC. It will span all the issues the progressive community cares about form healthcare to climate change to gay rights to immigration."
But Mr Coequyt said Mr Trump was surrounding himself with advisers with links to the fossil fuel industry and so politicians from other countries might actually be able to exert greater influence. "Right now, all of the people who have been identified as senior advisers, potentially take roles in cabinet, they are all fossil fuel lobbyists and people who run these companies. That's going to be the big challenge," he added.
"The only people who have a word in his ear are fossil fuel industry insiders. It's international pressure that's going to be the most effective. Domestically he's got advisers who will insulate him from the reality of the world."
He said that the US military would be another "voice of reason" in close contact with the new President.
"They have for some time believed climate change is a 'force multiplier', it's very clear they believe it is driving instability around the world," Mr Coequyt said. "I don't think they are going to give up that position easily. It's now a 15-year-old position."
Deborah Barker-Manase is representing the Republic of the Marshall Islands – a Pacific island state already experiencing the effects of climate change – at the ongoing United Nations climate summit in Morocco.
She spelled out the kind of problems that that are also beginning to hit many parts of the world.
"We're experiencing frequent storm surges … anything just above the normal average high-water tide has a very big impact because we are no more than two metres above sea level," Ms Barker-Manase said.
"And we are experiencing prolonged drought events, which for an atoll nation is pretty serious even if it is a month long because there are no freshwater sources other than rain.
"I think it's not a matter of convincing someone … you just have to look around."
British politicians were scathing of Mr Trump.

'Dangerous' climate change could arrive as early as 2050

Barry Gardiner, Labour's shadow minister for international climate change, said "even though a Trump administration will present a significant threat to continued action at the federal level in the USA, it cannot hold back the global tide that is sweeping us to a low-carbon future".
"I will be calling on Theresa May to make clear to Mr Trump that the world expects the USA to stay solidly behind the Paris Agreement," he added.
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said Mr Trump was "frankly is a disaster for our future", particularly as Congress is controlled by the Republicans.
"He has talked about ripping our climate change agreements, rolling back green energy schemes and downsizing the Environment Protection Agency," Mr Farron said. "He is not only mad and bad but he's also dangerous and this is exhibit A."
And Green Party co-leader described Mr Trump's election as "a potential hammer blow to the climate movement".
Even the World Coal Association (WCA) issued a plea to the soon-to-be 45th US President to try to reduce greenhouse gases. Benjamin Sporton, the WCA's chief executive, said: "We will encourage the Trump administration to collaborate with international development partners to work together to increase funding for low emission coal technologies."

Links

• Climate change 'game over'? Scientists say global warming could hit 7C
• Paris climate deal is dead after Trump's election, Australian MPs say
• Obama's legacy is about to be destroyed by Donald Trump
• Record-breaking heat of 2015 could become 'new normal' within years
• Global warming 'to turn all of southern Spain into desert'

Trump Win Clears Way For China to Lead on Climate

Climate Central - Reuters

The election of climate change skeptic Donald Trump as president is likely to end the U.S. leadership role in the international fight against global warming and may lead to the emergence of a new and unlikely champion: China.
China worked closely with the administration of outgoing President Barack Obama to build momentum ahead of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The partnership of the two biggest greenhouse gas emitters helped get nearly 200 countries to support the pact at the historic meet in France's capital.
By contrast, Trump has called global warming a hoax created by China to give it an economic advantage and said he plans to remove the United States from the historic climate agreement, as well as reverse many of Obama's measures to combat climate change.
He has appointed noted climate change skeptic Myron Ebell to help lead transition planning for the Environmental Protection Agency, which has crafted the administration’s major environmental regulations such as the Clean Power Plan and efficiency standards for cars and trucks.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump gestures as he speaks at election night rally in Manhattan, New York, U.S., November 9, 2016. Credit: REUTERS/Mike Segar

Beijing is poised to cash in on the goodwill it could earn by taking on leadership in dealing with what for many other governments is one of the most urgent issues on their agenda.
"Proactively taking action against climate change will improve China's international image and allow it to occupy the moral high ground," Zou Ji, deputy director of the National Centre for Climate Change Strategy and a senior Chinese climate talks negotiator, told Reuters.
Zou said that if Trump abandons efforts to implement the Paris agreement, "China's influence and voice are likely to increase in global climate governance, which will then spill over into other areas of global governance and increase China's global standing, power and leadership."
Chen Zhihua, a representative of the Chinese delegation and official in the climate change division of the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's economic planning agency, said Chinese and other countries' efforts will not change if the United States withdraws from the agreement.
“Action by the international community will not stop because of the new government of the United States. We still have confidence the international community will join hands and continue our efforts on climate change,” he told reporters at the 200-nation U.N. meeting being held in Marrakesh to start fleshing out the implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The Paris Agreement seeks to phase out net greenhouse gas emissions by the second half of the century and limit global warming to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Each country has put forward national plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Some have raised concerns that without involvement and financial support from the United States, emerging economies like India may feel inclined to back out.
One of the key advisors to Obama's team on climate change said he hoped China would take on the mantle and keep the global climate deal alive.
Beijing should "continue to work in the spirit that we worked together in and before Paris," said Andrew Light, former senior adviser to previous U.S. Special Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern.

Changing Role
It is an ironic twist for the government of the world's second-largest economy. For years, Beijing fought attempts by foreign governments to limit carbon emissions, claiming it should be allowed the same space to develop and pollute that industrialized nations had.
But with its capital often choked by smog and its people angry about the environmental devastation that rapid development has wrought across the country, Beijing has become a proponent of efforts to halt global warming rather than a hindrance.
"China is acting on climate for the benefit of its own people," said Erik Solheim, executive director of the UN Environment Programme.
"I am confident China will take a lead role."
China has powerful domestic and global imperatives to play a high-profile role in continued global climate change talks, meant to avert more heat waves, droughts, floods and rising sea levels that could cause trillions of dollars of damage by 2100.
China sees a perceived role as global climate leader as way to bolster its aspiration to become a "clean energy superpower" by leading in renewable energy technology such as wind and solar power and asserting itself as a key geopolitical power.  
Dealing with the pressures of continued urbanization in some of the world's largest cities has already put China ahead, said Andrew Steer, the president of environmental think tank the World Resources Institute.
Beijing is innovating to build low-carbon cities, he said.
"It sees carbon as an indicator of economic inefficiency," Steer said.
Trump's victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton darkened the mood of delegates attending the current round of climate talks in Marrakesh.  
Some delegates at the talks say that China is already setting an example.
"China is surprising us daily. Whatever they've promised they're delivering," said Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, of Democratic Republic of Congo, who heads the 48-nation group of least developed countries at the talks.

Links

• Will China Become A Leader On Global Climate Action?
• China pledges to continue to be "active player" in climate change talks - Xinhua
• Down in Marrakech: China and the US exchange climate roles
• World Bank vows to be strong partner of China on climate issues