I welcome the opportunity to work with the new US administration, although it is disappointing that the first climate action of the Trump administration is to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. For our member countries, 70 of the most climate vulnerable developing countries, Paris is a lifeline. It enshrined a threshold for global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees for safety to be restored, and provided scales of justice to be rebalanced by the historical big emitters to, in some way, make amends for the climate damages we suffer daily. This has always been about leadership and the US must be a tide of change – to be exceptional – because climate change impacts are drowning, burning, and washing away the future of the poor and vulnerable – our future – and the worsening impacts cannot just be wished away. Our countries need to be able to provide basic services in times of crisis. I invite President Trump to see some of the challenges we are facing on the frontlines, including my home country of Maldives. I invite the President to witness the actual impacts from storm surges to heatwaves to melting glaciers to massive crop failures, so that he may reconsider the position of his administration. We must do all we can to protect and raise international unity so we can tackle the climate crisis together, collectively, with each doing their fair share. Step by step, we must be guided by science, the most effective weapon utilized by US institutions, that leads the way towards the greater good. I am sure the US will be back in Paris, and meanwhile we must continue to build our clean, prosperous future together with those nations that are determined to help safeguard a better future for everyone.
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