Climate diplomats to meet on implementing Paris accord

The top climate change diplomats from the world’s nations will meet next week in Morocco to start discussing how to implement last year’s Paris climate agreement.

The conference, dubbed the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP 22, will start the day before Election Day in the U.S., when voters could decide to elect Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has pledged to pull out of the pact.

{mosads}Trump’s candidacy and a high-profile court battle over the future of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan are two major clouds over the conference, as diplomats from around the world fear the United States will not up to its commitments under the nonbinding accord.

But the Obama administration’s main representatives to the meeting aren’t deterred.

“I think there is a great deal of interest, not just domestically, but internationally, in terms of what the election outcome will be,” John Morton, director for climate and energy at the White House National Security Council, told reporters Thursday. “The candidates have very different views on climate.”

But Morton said countries around the world are starting to see the “inevitability” of transitioning toward clean energy, no matter what happens in the United States.

“We will continue to see countries moving forward at a fast clip, irrespective of what happens next Tuesday,” he said.

Jonathan Pershing, climate envoy at the State Department, said there are procedures for pulling out of the pact, as Trump has promised, but stressed the benefits of remaining in it.

“At the moment, I don’t think that’s very likely. My sense is frankly that there are going to be huge domestic advantages to staying in this agreement and to doing the work that we’ve agreed to do,” Pershing said, saying the United States sees investment opportunities and reduced impacts of climate change from the pact.

Nearly 200 nations struck the deal last December, making it the first global climate pact that put developed and developing countries on a similar footing.

It is due to take force Friday. But its emissions limits are not binding, so a future president could simply not try to meet the United States’s pledge of a 26 percent to 28 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Pershing and Morton said the top goals for the Obama administration at the meeting in Marrakech revolve around implementing the pact, with a goal of finalizing guidelines for emissions reporting and other major questions by 2018.

“We are working to develop the rules and the guidelines that will give more flesh on the framework we developed in Paris,” Pershing said.

But he also wants to make sure world leaders know the United States remains committed on climate change, no matter what happens with domestic policy.

“We are seeking to make the world aware that we are continuing to prioritize this issue,” he said. “Paris is not the end. Paris is a step. This is the first phase of the implementation agenda.”