"President-elect Donald Trump's stance on global warming is well known," says Schellnhuber, who is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. "Ironically, he contributed to the popularity of our recent 'Turn down the heat'-report series for the World Bank by attacking it on Twitter. Yet apart from this, science cannot expect any positive climate action from him. The world has now to move forward without the US on the road towards climate-risk mitigation and clean-technology innovation. The US de-elected expertise and will likely show a blockade mentality now, so Europe and Asia have to pioneer and save the world."
"Formally leaving the Paris Agreement would take longer than one Presidential term, yet of course the US could simply refuse reducing national emissions which would mean a de facto exit out of international climate policy," Schellnhuber adds. "Now the US are one of the world's biggest economies, and even just four years of unbridled emissions staying in the atmosphere for many hundreds of years would make a substantial difference. The climate system doesn't forget, and it doesn't forgive. The US is prone to potentially devastating climate change impacts. Hurricanes hit US coastal cities, the California drought affected farmers, and a state like Florida is particularly exposed to sea-level rise. Sadly, in the long run nature itself might show the US citizens that climate change as a matter of fact is not a hoax. But it might be too late.''
