The United Nations’ climate change chief is not taking no for an answer on the future of the United Nations sponsored Paris Agreement on climate change.
As a result she is travelling this week to the United States capital, Washington, in the hope of meeting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
However, as Reuters Newsagency reports so far there has been no response from the US administration..
“The process has been difficult for them to get started, so I don’t know if I will be able to see the Secretary of State this time,” Patricia Espinosa, the head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told reporters in London.
Ms Espinosa is tasked with the challenge of steering the international climate negotiations through the finer details of the Paris Agreement over the next few years, as policymakers work out how best to address topics, such as loss and damage, climate finance, and the creation of a fair “rulebook” to help assess individual country’s pledges.
Reuters reports a State Department spokesman, Noel Clay, said he could not confirm any meetings had been arranged.
The veteran Mexican diplomat is relatively new to the job of implementing a climate agreement that was approved by 195 countries in Paris in December 2015.
The problem is that President Donald Trump, sworn in last month, has threatened to pull out of it and without the world’s second-biggest producer of carbon dioxide on board, the accord will be left in some degree of trouble.
Asked if Mr Trump was still committed to pulling out of the pact, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the president and Mr Tillerson were having a “conversation” on the subject.
“I will leave that to Secretary Tillerson,” Mr Spicer said.
Mr Trump has sent mixed signals about global warning, which he once tweeted was a Chinese hoax.
He pledged during his campaign to withdraw the US from the UN accord and to support burning coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.
Since then, he told the New York Times newspaper that he was keeping an “open mind” about the deal.
Mr Tillerson, a former oil executive, made encouraging statements about climate discussions during his confirmation hearings and the US plans to send a normal-sized delegation to the next round of climate talks in May.
“I hope this means they won’t pull out,” said Ms Espinosa.
