Climate envoys meet in Bonn, but all eyes on Washington

Washington, Tuesday

Climate negotiators return for talks in Bonn, Germany, today under the cloud of Donald Trump’s threats to pull America from the hard-fought Paris Agreement, as the president prepares to hold a special meeting to discuss US participation.

After months of uncertainty, the US president appeared closer to a decision on whether he intends to keep a campaign promise to withdraw Washington from the climate-rescue pact, whose practicalities are being haggled over during UN talks in Bonn.

Trump and his top climate and economic aids will kick-off discussions in earnest on Tuesday in the US, a senior administration official said, adding that “they are meeting tomorrow at 1.30pm”.

Uncertainty over America’s future has already loomed large during the 11-day meeting to work out the nuts and bolts of implementing the international deal, which Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, was instrumental in bringing about.

David Balton, the US deputy assistant secretary for international environmental affairs, said Monday: “The last thing I heard is that the president, our president, has indicated that he plans to make a decision some time over the next couple of weeks, but not this week.”

A total of 196 countries are now parties to the climate deal, clinched in 2015 after years of tough bartering, which Trump threatened to “cancel”. The May 8-18 Bonn meeting is meant to start drafting a guide for member countries to execute the pact, which seeks to brake global warming by curbing fossil fuel emissions.

But the negotiations risk being hamstrung over fears that the world’s number two carbon polluter will pull out and throw the pact into disarray. “There’s no question that if the US withdraws it is going to create difficulties... in the negotiations,” Paula Caballero of the World Resources Institute think-tank said as climate envoys met for their first session since Trump took office. The US did send a delegation to the talks, led by Obama-era negotiator Trigg Talley, who declined to comment on their brief. —AFP

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