Trump Win Raises Questions About Un Climate Deal

The election of a U.S. president who has called global warming a “hoax” alarmed environmentalists and climate scientists Wednesday and raised questions about whether America, once again, would pull out of an international climate deal.

Many said it’s now up to the rest of the world to lead efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, while others held out hope that Donald Trump would change his stance and honor U.S. commitments under last year’s landmark Paris Agreement.

“Now that the election campaign has passed and the realities of leadership settle in, I expect he will realize that climate change is a threat to his people and to whole countries which share seas with the U.S., including my own,” said Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine.

Small island nations which fear they will be swallowed by rising seas are among the biggest supporters of the Paris deal and other international efforts to curb emissions, mainly from fossil fuels.

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 climate changes.

“I’m sure that the rest of the world will continue to work on it,” Moroccan chief negotiator Aziz Mekouar said at U.N. climate talks in Marrakech.

Many environmentalists and scientists weren’t so sure.

“The Paris Agreement and any U.S. leadership in international climate progress is dead,” said Dana Fisher, director of the Program for Society and the Environment at the University of Maryland. However, the transition toward cleaner energy is so entrenched in the U.S. it would continue without federal money, she added.