Ban Ki-moon hopes Trump will change his campaign rhetoric on Climate Change

MARRAKESH.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says he hopes United States President-elect Donald Trump will change his campaign rhetoric on Climate Change.

Mr Ki-moon, who addressed a press conference on Tuesday ahead of the high-level segment to the 22nd Conference of Parties involving heads of state and governments in Marrakesh , Morocco said he had spoken to Mr Trump last week after being elected President on November 9.

“I spoke with President-elect Donald Trump and we talked many issues; Peace and security issues including the issue of climate change. I remain optimistic about our efforts to combat climate change,” Mr Ki-moon said.
“He will have to understand the reality of the World’s progress to combat climate Change,” the UN Secretary General added.

The election of Mr Trump as the 45th President of the United States has continued to pose a threat on whether his country will remain committed to the Paris Climate Agreement, which seeks to keep the rise in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius.

However, Mr Ki-moon said that currently about 109 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have already ratified the Paris Climate Agreement which entered into force on November 4.

He added that about 70 per cent of the world’s largest emitters of Greenhouse gases have already signed the Paris Climate agreement.

“I hope that President-elect Mr Trump will understand that the seriousness and urgency of addressing climate change and I hope he will re-visit his campaign rhetoric,” Mr Ki-moon said.

Out-going US President Barrack Obama signed the executive order ratifying the Paris Climate pact alongside China in September this year.
During Campaigns, Mr Trump was accused by his defeated rival Hillary Clinton of not believing that Climate Change exists but rather calling it a hoax.

Mr Trump once twitted that global warming is a concept created by China to undermine US manufacturing competitiveness, but he has since denied making such a comment.

“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,” Mr Trumps tweeted on November 12, 2012.

This has left negotiators at the 22nd Conference of Parties to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change guessing on what could be the next move of the US President-elect regarding matters of global warming.

Last week while addressing a joint press conference to mark the halfway point of COP22 in Morocco’s city of Marrakech, Mr Salaheddine Mezouar, the COP22 President and UNFCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa were also forced to respond to questions on whether Trump’s election would undermine US’s Commitment to the Climate Change agenda.

“The American people are very engaged and committed to the fight against climate change,” Mr Mezouar said following several questions from journalists on the US election results.

He added that Trump’s position on Climate Change had been removed from his Website.

“We should wait and see what comes from the US administration. We are looking at a universal agreement and our goal is to keep it a global level,” Ms Espinosa said.

“This is a process where everybody counts. We will be looking at getting everybody on board,” she added.

However, Mr Mezouar said that withdrawal of one party does not compromise the implementation of the Paris Climate agreement. But he quickly noted: “We are here to ensure all parties remain part of the agreement.”

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