Just days after the historic Paris agreement officially came into force, the surprise victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election has thrown the global deal into uncertainty and raised fears that the US will reverse the ambitious environmental course charted under Barack Obama.
Outgoing United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, however, today voiced confidence that Trump will not seek to undo the Paris climate deal despite his campaign pledge to cancel the landmark agreement on combating global warming.
“He has made a lot of worrying statements, but I am sure that he will understand the whole importance and seriousness and urgency. The presidency may be important, but humanity and all our lives and our planet Earth are eternal," Ban said.
He also noted that there was a strong consensus in across the world on the need to address global warming.
“Now business communities are fully on board. Civil society members are fully on board. How can one change all this course? It's a huge trend. It will create serious problems if anybody wants to undo it, or unravel all this process,” he said.
The US president-elect, who said during his campaign that global warming was a hoax invented by the Chinese, has vowed to renege on US commitments to cut down greenhouse gas emissions and help finance the transition to a green economy worldwide.
