Asks Donald Trump To Stay In The Paris Agreement

Uncertainty over America's future in the climate-rescue Paris Agreement loomed large over United Nations talks in Bonn Monday to work out the nuts and bolts of implementing the hard-fought global deal.

Mr Trump does seem to prefer face-to-face interactions with world leaders to clarify his positions rather than other diplomatic avenues.

"Having been intensely involved in such negotiations for a long time, there can be no doubt that Paris is utterly nonbinding, and therefore, each country is free to adjust their pledges in accordance with their own national circumstances", said James Connaughton, who headed up the White House Council on Environmental Quality under President George W. Bush.

Administration officials said the crunch sit-down may now take place next week, before Trump departs for a bumper first foreign trip that will take in Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican and Brussels before ending in Sicily.

He had been slated later Tuesday to meet key climate and economic advisers to discuss a possible withdrawal, but a senior White House official told AFP the meeting has been postponed.

Officials from Barack Obama´s administration argue that the deal is good for the United States.

Under former President Barack Obama, the United States and China issued several joint statements on climate change, even announcing together they would sign the Paris agreement.

The core of the Paris deal was an agreement between Xi and then USA president Barack Obama.

A Tuesday White House meeting on the Paris agreement has been postponed to an as-yet-unspecified later date, the White House confirmed Monday evening.

As a candidate, the president expressed doubt about climate change, but has offered a fluid stance since taking office in January. Ivanka Trump plans to meet separately with Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, who has said publicly over the last month that the USA should pull out of the deal. "He told him (Trump) that he will protect what was made in Paris".

Despite uncertainties about whether the United States will remain committed to the Paris climate accord under President Donald Trump, envoys convened talks Monday in Germany on implementing the details of the deal to combat global warming.

In one corner you have senior officials like strategist Steve Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt, who are on record calling for an exit from the accord.

So far, 145 countries have ratified or accepted it, including China, the world's top polluter.

Attendees said the U.S. has been keeping a relatively low profile at the informal meetings in light of a pending decision.

The Obama administration pledged in 2015 to reduce U.S. carbon output by 26-28% by 2025, but the lynchpin of achieving that goal - closing coal-fired power plants - is under review by the Trump administration and is expected to be scaled back if not eliminated outright.

Each country must commit to a voluntary plan to reduce emissions, with the goal of keeping the global rise in temperatures to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.