 UN's Ban confident Trump will not undo Paris climate deal: AFP interview United Nations, United States (AFP) Nov 11, 2016 - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday voiced confidence that Donald Trump will not seek to undo the Paris climate deal despite his campaign pledge to cancel the landmark agreement on combating global warming. 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. "He has made a lot of worrying statements, but I am sure that he will understand the whole importance and seriousness and urgency," said Ban in an interview to AFP. "The presidency may be important, but humanity and all our lives and our planet Earth are eternal," he said. Ban argued that there was a strong consensus in the United States and across the world on the need to address global warming, suggesting Trump would be recklessly out-of-sync if he scrapped the deal. "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," he said. "It will create serious problems if anybody wants to undo it, or unravel all this process." Ban, 72, has singled out the climate accord reached in Paris in December last year as his proudest moment in 10 years as the world's diplomat-in-chief. The former South Korean foreign minister said he plans to speak by phone with Trump soon and hopes for a meeting before his tenure ends on December 31 to explain how the United Nations expects the United States "to continue to work for humanity." The billionaire real estate tycoon won the US presidency on a platform that calls for closer ties with Russia, shaking up security alliances and questioning US funding to the United Nations. The UN chief brushed aside suggestion that the United States, by far the biggest contributor to the United Nations, could cut funding or sidestep the world body in addressing global issues. "This is what he said during the campaign period, on the campaign trail," Ban said. "Now, post-election, when he creates his transition team with experts and people with vision and expertise, I am sure that the United States will continue to play a leading role," said Ban in the interview at UN headquarters. The interview was Ban's first full assessment of the impact of the Trump electoral victory on global diplomacy.
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The world expects the United States to uphold its commitments under the landmark Paris climate treaty, despite Donald Trump's vow to pull out of it, the incoming head of its UN implementing body told AFP Friday.
"The Paris Agreement is here," Moroccan foreign minister Salaheddine Mezouar, who took over stewardship of the 196-nation forum from France earlier this week, said in an interview.
"It's entry into force means that governments must face up to their responsibilities."
"It would be, I think, extremely difficult to retreat -- there's no turning back," he added.
The news that avowed climate change denier Trump had captured the US White House stunned participants arriving Wednesday at the 12-day talks, which run from November 7 to 18.
Delegates from several countries have taken a "wait-and-see" attitude after the victory by the New York real estate developer, who has vowed to pull the United States out of the hard-won deal, two decades in the making.
Under the Paris pact, countries have submitted voluntary pledges to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that cause dangerous global warming.
- 'Impatient to hear from US' -
The agreement commits nations to collectively capping Earth's average temperature increase at under two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
With barely 1.0C (1.8F) of warming to date, the world has already seen an uptick in deadly storms, droughts, heatwaves and flooding.
Mezouar has not yet reached out to Trump or his team, he told AFP.
"As the president of COP22" -- the acronym for the 22nd meeting of the Conference of the Parties -- "I am waiting with impatience to encounter the new American administration," he told AFP.
"I have absolutely no doubt as to our capacity to keep this momentum, and that the United States will pursue its commitments alongside the rest of the international community."
A report Thursday by three research groups, however, said the US was likely to miss its emissions reduction targets without new climate policies, which Trump has vowed he would not put in place.
Experts and diplomats here insist that the global market-based transition from a fossil fuels to clean energy is too far advanced to peel back.
But Trump's ascension has shaken hard-won political unity at the UN forum, which has also agreed to give hundreds of billions of dollars to poor, climate-vulnerable nations.
This uncertainty makes Mezouar's role even more crucial, said Liz Gallagher, an analyst at London-based thinktank E3G.
"The Moroccans need to be more proactive in driving the process, using all the diplomatic tools at their disposal, to make sure we get a clear outcome," she told AFP.
National carbon-cutting plans submitted under the Paris Agreement go into effect in 2020.
Some ministers arriving next week for a high-level session will announce more ambitious pledges, which still fall far short of what is needed to stave off devastating climate impacts.
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