The fight against climate change is “bigger than one election”, US envoy John Podesta has said.
Mr Podesta was speaking at the UN COP29 climate talks after his party lost the White House to Republican and climate sceptic Donald Trump.
The re-election of Mr Trump, who is expected to again pull the United States out of global climate treaties and efforts, sent concern through the almost 200 countries gathering in Azerbaijan for the climate summit.
But a defiant Mr Podesta said: “This is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet.
“Facts are still facts. Science is still science. The fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country.”
Mr Trump’s campaign team indicated the president-elect would withdraw the US – the world’s second biggest polluter – out of the landmark Paris Agreement, which he also did during his last term.
The climate envoy, a senior advisor to President Joe Biden, said: “In January, we’re going to inaugurate a president whose relationship to climate change is captured by the words, ‘hoax’ and ‘fossil fuels’.“
He said he was aware the US had “disappointed” the world.
Other climate envoys were also keen to stress that the show must go on, and that COP29 is continuing with business as usual.
Germany’s representative Jennifer Morgan said many things being negotiated in Baku are “are long-term decisions” – alluding to the fact deals on potentially a ten-year finance goal or a shift away from fossil fuels may outlast a four-year term of a US president.
“Obviously, every country makes a difference,” she told Sky News. But spoke of “how much commitment” there is from other countries to carry on with climate action and cutting fossil fuels.
“It’s the cornerstone of European economic policy.”
If the US is absent from future climate talks, more expectation will be heaped on the EU to plug the gap.
Ms Morgan said there was no change in the EU’s commitment to climate action, despite political distractions back home, including a shift to the right and climate scepticism, and the Dutch prime minister and German chancellor missing COP29 to deal with domestic problems.
“We need leadership more than ever. But I can say from Europe I don’t see that wavering.”
