Story highlights Sutter: COP22 climate talks in Marrakesh are an important followup to UN climate talks held last year in Paris

The divergent views of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on climate change are hugely consequential, Sutter says

John D. Sutter is a columnist for CNN Opinion who focuses on climate change and social justice. Follow him on Snapchat, Facebook and email. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

(CNN) The world's attention is rightly focused this week on the US election.

Meanwhile in Morocco, however, diplomats are trying to do something future generations might see as even more consequential: They're trying to safeguard the planet from dangerous climate change.

The COP22 climate talks in Marrakesh, which opened on Monday, the day before the US presidential election, are a wonky but important followup to the UN climate talks held last year in Paris. There, the world pledged to do everything in its power to limit harmful warming to at most 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

That's a staggeringly bold and critical goal -- one that requires the world to ditch fossil fuels completely in coming decades. When protests flare up in North Dakota over oil pipelines , this is partly why. Climate activists realize the true urgency with which the world must act to avoid super-droughts, drowned coastal cities and mass extinction.

There's simply no time to waste.