Shortly after his emergence as the U.S. President-elect, climate activists are urging Mr Donald Trump to honour the Paris agreement which he had promised to withdraw if he won the elections.
More than 100 countries, including the U.S., have formally joined the agreement, which seeks to reduce emissions and help vulnerable countries adapt to rising seas, intensifying heat waves, the spreading of deserts and other changes.
The deal is also aimed at keeping global temperature below two degrees Celsius.
Only few days after the historic Paris agreement officially came into force, climate denier Donald Trump’s victory, has however thrown the global deal into uncertainty and raised fears that the U.S will reverse the ambitious environmental course charted under Barack Obama.
International environmental groups meeting at the 2016 UN climate change conference in Morocco, said it would be a catastrophe if Trump acted on his pledge to withdraw the U.S from the deal, which took 20 years to negotiate, and to open up public land for coal, oil and gas extraction.
Trump had called climate change a practical joke, a statement which placed him virtually alone among world leaders on the validity of the science.
In May, he had promised to embark upon a four-year process of withdrawing the U.S from the Paris deal and has targeted the funds given to UN climate programmes and clean energy development.
He had also promised a “complete American energy independence”, giving prominence to coal as well as infrastructure projects.
While some groups have warned that any attempts by Trump to ditch the Paris deal would be an act of “economic self-sabotage”, others also urge the President-elect to act in the interest of the world.
May Boeve, head of climate campaign group said “the new president must protect the people he serves from climate chaos.
An environmental law professor at the Stanford Law School, Michael Wara, said although Trump could use his office to issue an executive communication removing the United States from Paris, the United States would still be a party for four years and could be subject to its legally binding procedural commitments.