Outi Honkatukia-Chief negotiator for Climate Change in her exclusive interview to Eurasia DIary on Climate Change issue and Donald Trump attitude to it.
Eurasia Diary: How do you see the Climate Change dangerousness? Is it really a “planetary disaster”?
Outi Honkatukia: Absolutely Climate Change is very dangerous, especially in the vulnerable regions like small islands. They also very dangerous to the Arctic region where the increased temperature is less expected to be not higher than the global average.
Eurasia Diary: Trump described climate change as just a “weather” and Chinese “hoax”. Therefore, environmentalists launched a campaign to convince Trump in a seriousness of this issue. In your opinion, do environmentalists’ efforts will bring any positive result?
Outi Honkatukia: I really hope so because the Climate Change is not weather or Chinese hoax. I believe that President-elect Trump will take environmental advices and he will be convinced that Climate Change is real and not a hoax.
Eurasia Diary: Trump announced that he will get out of Paris Agreement after he becomes president. From your viewpoint, how big the USA’s impact on resolving the climate change issue and how big the consequences of US withdrawal from the agreements will be?
Outi Honkatukia: I think that all benefits from the fact that the USA and China have been leading these efforts will be good for the climate. I don’t want to speculate like whether president-elect trump will withdraw from the agreement or not because this is just speculation over time. Moreover, they were not prompting withdrawal during the presidential campaign. Therefore I wouldn’t want to speculate on whether he will get out of the Paris Agreement.
Eurasia Diary: The Marrakech Climate Change Conference has already ended. In your opinion, how the outcome of this conference will affect on Climate Change issue?
Outi Honkatukia: I think that the main outcome of the Marrakech Conference is that world is united in trying to tackle Climate Change. This will come forward with implementation of the Paris Agreement. The second result is having a very complete next step in the black program on the how Rwanda is going to implement the transparency framework and other aspects of the Paris Agreement so that we can get the Paris rulebook finalized by 2018.
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