Climate policy experts view the imminent return of President Donald Trump to the White House as a setback in efforts to combat global warming but are hoping that the momentum already gained will drive climate action worldwide, including within the US.

The shift towards clean energy is expected to continue for economic reasons and because of concerns about the impacts of climate change, multiple experts said on Thursday amid apprehensions that a second Trump administration might implement promises made in the 2024 election campaign.

Among his other campaign promises, Trump has pledged to make America “the dominant energy producer in the world” through enhanced production of oil and natural gas and to exit the 2015 Paris climate pact, an international agreement aimed at limiting the worst impacts of global warming.

Under the agreement, all countries are expected to take action to lower emissions of Earth-warming greenhouse gases and expand their renewable energy. Also, developed countries are expected to provide finance and technology to developing nations to support their climate actions.

“There is no denying that another Trump presidency will stall national efforts to tackle the climate crisis,” said Dan Lashof, US director of the World Resources Institute, a non-government environment and climate think tank based in Washington DC.

“But most US state, local and private sector leaders are committed to charging ahead. And you can count on a chorus of world leaders confirming that they won’t turn back on climate goals,” Lashof said in a statement.

Jonathan Pershing, a former special envoy for climate change in the US state department who had played a key role in negotiations with China, India and the European Union, said a US exit from the Paris agreement was unlikely to prompt other countries to do so.

“Not a single country followed suit…. I don’t think any other country will do it this time either,” Pershing said at a media briefing organised by the WRI on Thursday.

He said China and India were pursuing green and renewable energy for their domestic requirements. India’s expansion of renewable energy, for instance, helps reduce its oil import bill. India has set a target of achieving 50 per cent of installed electricity capacity through non-fossil fuel sources by 2030.

As a rich nation and a major emitter of greenhouse gases, the US has a responsibility and is key to achieving the goals of the Paris pact, Chitra Kumar, managing director of the climate and energy programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit science advocacy organisation in the US, wrote in a blog on Wednesday.

“Stepping away from it (the Paris agreement) would affect the US's credibility and could potentially impact its ability to secure cooperation on other geopolitical, trade and security issues,” Kumar wrote. She said the Union of Concerned Scientists will work to defend against any rollbacks to public health safeguards and climate policies that are grounded in science and benefit people.

The WRI’s Lashof said Trump’s return to the White House “won’t be a death knell” to the clean energy transition. “Both Republican-led and Democratic-led states are seeing the benefits of wind, solar, and battery manufacturing and deployment…. President Trump will face a bipartisan wall of opposition if he attempts to rip away clean energy incentives now,” Lashof said in his statement.