EU concerns are growing that some oil-rich nations that have not yet ratified the deal could now try and slow action on reducing emissions

Concerns are mounting that Donald Trump’s victory could embolden some fossil fuel-rich countries to try unpicking the historic Paris climate agreement, which came into force last week.

Saudi Arabia has tried to obstruct informal meetings at the UN climate summit in Marrakech this week, and worries are rife that states which have not yet ratified the agreement could seek to slow action on carbon emissions. Trump has called global warming a hoax and promised to withdraw the US from the Paris accord.

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An EU source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “Of course this is a factor if not a fear – that where climate policies are concerned, Trump’s victory will probably make some parties feel empowered to start trying to reopen what has been agreed. If the US withdraws or starts demanding renegotiations, it is a possibility that some of the other parties will wake up and say ‘We have some pieces that we want to renegotiate as well’.”

Officials in Brussels and Washington stress that the Paris agreement’s entry into force in 2016 – four years earlier than required under the treaty – shows a rapid and ongoing momentum.

What is the Paris agreement? It's a climate change accord agreed by nearly 200 countries in December 2015, which came into force on 4 November 2016. The agreement commits world leaders to keeping global warming below 2C, seen as the threshold for safety by scientists, and pursuing a tougher target of 1.5C. The carbon emission curbs put forward by countries under Paris are not legally-binding but the framework of the accord, which includes a mechanism for periodically cranking those pledges up, is binding. The agreement also has a long-term goal for net zero emissions which would effectively phase out fossil fuels.





The vast majority of the 105 states that have ratified the Paris accord remain firmly committed to the legal framework and certainty it gives clean energy investors.

But Trump’s win spurred the EU president Jean-Claude Juncker to call for an urgent clarification by the president elect of the new US climate position.

“We must know what climate policies he intends to pursue,” Juncker said in a speech in Berlin on Thursday. “This must be cleared up in the next few months.”

Some NGOs said that the potential ending of the US-China alliance that pushed through a deal in Paris has already spurred Saudi Arabia to step up disruptive efforts in talks.

Safa al-Jayoussi, Climate Action Network’s Arab world co-coordinator, said that officials from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other states had expressed relief at Trump’s victory because of his support for fossil fuels in his 100 days plan.

“Those countries trying to put obstacles in the way of Paris can now take advantage of the political instability caused by Trump’s election,” she said. “I think that some states which signed the Paris agreement because of all the international pressure will now use the US election as an excuse to put obstacles in the way of a transparent agreement. They are doing that in informal meetings.”

In one working group on the Paris agreement the day that Trump was elected, Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, tried to block plans for a review towards mid-century of climate goals.

The Saudi delegation also reportedly objected to language about the gender dimension of climate change and the integration of the UN’s human rights convention into the Paris text. Saudi Arabia is one of the 100-plus countries that has ratified the agreement.

“They are using all the tools at their disposal just to try to seed a bit of discontent everywhere, which is frankly a bit pathetic,” said Liz Gallagher, a senior associate at the environmental thinktank E3G. “They can use procedures as much as they like, but the parties will still talk about it, just not with the Saudis.”

While Russia is also a part of the “awkward squad” on climate issues – frequently raising unpredictable last-minute demands – these were usually more manageable within the UN talks process, Gallagher added.

Signals from Beijing suggest no lessening of resolve from a country wildly accused by Trump of inventing the climate change concept to make US manufacturing industry uncompetitive.

“There will be a distinction between campaign policies and real policies,” Chinese negotiator Gu Zihua told the Associated Press. “We should still wait and see what kind of measures the US will take on climate change.”

Energy experts in the UK said Trump’s win would likely be damaging for international efforts to reduce carbon emissions from energy, unless he changed direction.

Sir Edward Davey, who was the UK’s energy and climate secretary from 2012-15, told the Guardian: “The signal of Trump for climate and energy policy internationally is about as bad as it could get. But we will need to wait to see what the reality is. The fact the Paris agreement has come into force does constrain what Trump can actually do.

“Markets and technologies are also going far faster than governments and international agreements, and the states across the US will be able to take advantage of the cheap clean energy. So the size of the disaster is at least contained but there’s no getting away from it, it’s pretty awful.”

Davey, who is now chairman of green power firm Mongoose Energy, called on Theresa May to urge Trump to consult with allies before the US pulls out of any UN agreements.

Lawrence Slade, chief executive of Energy UK which represents the UK’s Big Six energy companies, said: “The Marrakech climate talks are going on right now. A Trump administration can fly in the face of the whole world or they can sit down and work with us. It makes good plain logic sense to decarbonise.”