| By Jennifer A. Dlouhy Donald Trump has been clear that he plans to lead another US retreat from global climate diplomacy if he wins a second term in the White House, vowing to once again abandon the landmark Paris Agreement that he calls "horrendously unfair." Environmentalists, government officials and former diplomats are already bracing for the possibility and plotting ways to Trump-proof global cooperation on climate change. A series of conversations, crisis simulations and political wargaming have spanned the globe, described by people familiar with the sessions as galvanized by a desire to maximize climate progress — even with an adversarial US president.  Former US President Donald Trump during a campaign event in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Oct. 22, 2024. Photographer: Cornell Watson/Bloomberg "These discussions are an example of global leaders having learned a lesson from their first experience with Trump," said Jake Schmidt, senior adviser to the NRDC Action Fund, an environmental group. "Other countries that are working hard on climate will not be burned again by an administration acting on behalf of fossil fuels interests." Read More: US Climate Initiatives Most Vulnerable if Trump Wins Election A US exodus — or even the post-election prospect of one — would trigger a wave of consequences, inevitably altering the nature of annual United Nations climate negotiations and rippling through the system in sometimes unpredictable ways. The departure of the world's second-biggest greenhouse gas emitter could provide leverage and political cover for laggard countries to stall new climate action. At the same time, it could create an opening for China, the world's top polluter, to step up and claim the mantle of climate leadership. With days until the global climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, worried stakeholders have been working to lock in new channels of climate diplomacy that link the US up with other institutions but don't necessarily run through Washington, DC. Officials from Maryland and California have met with Chinese officials to discuss continued climate collaboration at the subnational level, allowing state and local governments to pick up any slack. Some state representatives were part of meetings in Beijing in September while the chief US climate negotiator, John Podesta, engaged in talks with his Chinese counterpart. Some climate negotiators have even conducted simulations to prepare for a potential Trump return and to game out strategies for how that would affect talks at the COP29 conference that begins six days after the US presidential election. Activists ran through a crisis communications simulation last week to ensure they were prepared for what an online notice called "the possible looming reality of a Trump election win and its impact on the COP29 climate talks."  World Bank Group President Ajay Banga (right) joins Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, China's then-climate envoy Xie Zhenhua, COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber and then-US climate envoy John Kerry on stage at the UN COP28 climate conference in Dubai on Dec. 2, 2023. Photographer: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg During his first term, Trump promised to be beholden to Pittsburgh, not Paris. That's how he explained his decision to begin extricating the US from the global climate accord adopted by nearly 200 nations. At the time, he stopped short of abandoning the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a treaty that lays out a goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and compels member countries to provide a yearly inventory of that planet-warming pollution. But some conservatives are pushing exactly that idea if Trump wins election next week. The Project 2025 blueprint of policies developed by the Heritage Foundation and other groups specifically endorses the tactic, encouraging the next conservative administration to withdraw from both the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, after arguing that "such routinely violated treaties weaken the US economy with no offsetting societal benefits." Read More: Project 2025, Explained: What It Says and What Trump Says About It Advocates of that maximalist approach have also drafted language that could be tucked into an executive order to kick off the change, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named describing the work. While it's common practice for lobbyists to ghostwrite policies in hopes of winning a White House embrace, Trump's campaign has not committed to take the action and has disavowed Project 2025. Representatives of the campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Still, the drafts underscore the seriousness of the effort. —With Natasha White, John Ainger and Jess Shankleman Read the full story on Bloomberg.com. | 
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