The view from Marrakech: climate talks are battling through a Trump tsunami

Robyn Eckersley - surviving the
 Trump tsunami at Marrakech.

Stunned. Shocked. Speechless. Devastated. Political tsunami. These were the key words rising to the surface of the babble of conversations that took place in the corridors of the climate negotiations in Marrakech on Wednesday 9 November – the day Donald Trump won the US presidency.

A climate denier, Trump has vowed to tear up the historic Paris Agreement along with the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which seeks to slash greenhouse emissions from power plants. He has also given the green light to renewed fossil fuel exploitation in the United States.

Oil and gas stocks unsurprisingly rose, and coal stocks soared, on his victory day. If implemented, Trump’s promises would make it impossible for the United States to reach its national pledge under the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions by 26-28% relative to 2005 by 2025.

Read the thoughts of the Professor of Political Science from the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne,  Robyn Eckersley , on The Conversation - “The view from Marrakech: climate talks are battling through a Trump tsunami.”