World set for new heat record

World set for a new heat record in 2016

Will Donald Trump pull out of Paris Climate deal?

The world is set for a new heat record in 2016 following sizzling temperatures last year.

But talks at the current Climate Change Conference in Marrakesh are being overshadowed by Donald Trump’s election.

Today at #COP22 in Marrakech.

These are the nearly 200 flags outside the conference venue. #climate #travel #photography pic.twitter.com/BwLM3Mejfn— Alexander Verbeek (@Alex_Verbeek) November 14, 2016

The US president-elect has called climate change a “hoax” and is reportedly seeking ways to pull the US out of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

US climate change envoy Jonathan Pershing has admitted there are provisions for difference administrations to withdraw from the deal.

“There are provisions on how a person or a country might withdraw from it, and there are the same in this one. The new administration may look at the commitment globally, at the interest globally in the issue and decide how it can move forward in ways that are consistent of its own policies. We’ll have to wait and see.”

However he also reportedly said on the fringes of the UN climate change conference that he was convinced that ““climate momentum” will continue under Trump”:http://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/climate-momentum-will-continue-us-envoy-on-trump-vote.

The Paris deal, backed by almost 200 nations including the United States, has a goal of limiting the rise in temperatures to well below two degrees Celsius over pre-Industrial Revolution levels by cutting down on the use of planet-warming greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

But this year experts are not optimistic. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Secretary-General, Petteri Taalas said:

“If you look at the first nine months of this year, we are fairly high up again and we are breaking all the records. And it’s likely that we are going to reach this year 1.2 degrees warming level. We are going in the wrong direction if you think of the 1.5 degrees warming level which was agreed last year in Paris.”

The heat which triggers melting polar ice and damages Australia’s Great Barrier Reef was also stoked by an El Nino weather event in the Pacific earlier this year.

It means along with a new resident in the White House climate expert concerns are on the rise.

What happened this week at the Climate Change Conference #COP22 in Marrakech? Check out these photos: https://t.co/NUOJn3GGCk #GlobalGoals— United Nations (@UN) November 13, 2016