MARRAKECH, Morocco (AP) – The election of a U.S. president who has called global warming a “hoax” alarmed environmentalists and climate scientists and raised questions Wednesday about whether America, once again, would pull out of an international climate deal.
Several scientists warned that Earth will likely reach dangerous levels of warming if President-elect Donald Trump fulfills his campaign pledges to undo the Obama administration’s climate policies.
Many people at U.N. climate talks in Morocco said it’s now up to the rest of the world to lead efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. Others held out hope that Trump would change his stance and honor U.S. commitments under the 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,” Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine said in a statement. Small island nations fear they will be swallowed by rising seas.
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 from man-made warming.