What Does President Trump Mean for the Paris Climate Agreement?

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As Americans headed to the polls on election day, diplomats from around the world headed to Marrakech, Morocco for the first big global climate summit since the Paris Agreement last year. This was to be an important inflection point in the global effort to combat climate change. Just a week earlier the Paris Agreement officially entered into force after the requisite number of countries ratified it and this meeting in Marrakech would to fill in some key details and add some technical guidance to enable the implementation of the agreement.

And then, Donald Trump was elected. During the campaign he pledged to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and defund UN programs to combat climate change. So I was interested to learn the implications of the election on the ongoing negotiations in Morocco and this episode is in two parts. First, I speak with Eliot Diringer of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, who I caught up the day after the election just as he was headed to Morocco. Eliot discusses the ways domestic politics here in the USA may affect climate negotiations and also recounts the history of American leadership (or lack thereof) in international climate diplomacy. Next, I speak with Hugh Sealy, a diplomat from Grenada who is a lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, known as AOSIS in UN speak. I caught up with Hugh in Marrakech about a week after the election, and as you'll see he does not report that much has changed. He does though, also discuss the importance of American leadership and also offers some interesting insights into the role that small countries like his can play in these big negotiations. If you have not already done so, please check out the Patreon page I have created which is a way for you to support the show and also, if you are interested, take a deeper role in its production. Listeners who make a recurring monthly contribution through this platform can receive rewards for your support. So, for being a Global Dispatches premium subscriber you get a complimentary subscription to my DAWNS Digest global news clips service, sneak previews of upcoming episodes and the opportunity to have your questions posed to my guests, and also, if enough of you join the premium club I will launch a new podcast series, shaped by you, exclusively for. And stickers! Check it out.