Climate talks under shadow of Trump threats

Washington : US President Donald Trump's threats to pull America out of the climate-rescue Paris Agreement is expected to cast a long shadow over UN talks starting Monday to work on the nuts and bolts of the deal.

The 11-day haggle in Bonn is meant to start drafting a "rulebook" to guide member countries in the practical execution of the pact, which seeks to brake global warming by curbing fossil fuel emissions.

But the negotiations risk being sidetracked by fears that the world's number two carbon polluter will withdraw and throw the entire process into disarray.

"Obviously, the speculation coming out of Washington is now at the top of our minds," environment and energy minister Thoriq Ibrahim of the Maldives told AFP.

This is the first round of negotiations under the UN's climate convention (UNFCCC) since Trump's ascent to the White House.

His predecessor Barack Obama, alongside China's Xi Jinping, led a diplomatic push which saw 195 countries seal the climate deal in the French capital in 2015, after years of tough bartering.

Widely hailed as the last chance to stave off worst-case-scenario global warming, the pact was savaged by Trump during his presidential campaign.

He called climate change a "hoax" perpetrated by China, and promised to "cancel" the deal as president. 

With the rest of the world on tenterhooks ever since, Trump has said he will make his decision before the next G7 meeting on May 26-27 in Sicily.

"The question of whether this creates a difficult backdrop for the negotiations is clearly a 'yes'," said Paula Caballero, who heads the climate programme at the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI).

Some fear a US withdrawal from the agreement would dampen enthusiasm among other signatories for ramping up national emissions-cutting targets.