As leaders gather in the oil-rich nation of Azerbaijan for the COP29 climate summit, the question on everyone's mind is whether the world can still make meaningful progress on tackling climate change now that Donald Trump is the president-elect of the United States.

The timing of Trump's election victory, with his promise to withdraw the US from the global climate process, couldn't be worse. Next year is forecast to exceed 1.5 degrees of warming for the first time - something the Paris Agreement is designed to prevent from becoming the norm. And despite nearly 30 years of talks, man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are still rising, with only a handful of nations committing to cut them enough to prevent close to three degrees of warming by the end of the century.

Under previous administrations, the US was a major diplomatic force at the climate talks, brokering significant concessions from more recalcitrant states, including the world's largest polluter, China. It also set ambition, adopting carbon-cutting pledges and domestic policies like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that sent a powerful message to others that if the US saw a future beyond fossil fuels, everyone could.

Now, with the US negotiating team heading to Baku still serving President Joe Biden's agenda but having lost its diplomatic leverage, the question is whether the departure of the US will galvanise other leaders - threatened by increasingly right-leaning electorates at home - to scale back their ambition too. Or will they even follow the US's lead and ditch the "woke" jamboree of school-shy teenagers, indigenous groups and NGOs that some have long perceived the UN climate talks to be?

According to Jonathan Pershing, former president Barack Obama's then-climate envoy, this is unlikely to happen. Even when Trump tried to reverse US climate policies during his last term, not a single other country followed the United States in withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. And Pershing believes the same will be true this time, as the economic realities of the shift to clean technologies make it an increasingly attractive proposition, even for America's competitors like China.

However, international agreements have long lagged behind the urgency of the climate crisis, and the talks about to start in Baku were supposed to accelerate action. Instead, negotiators will arrive knowing that 72 million Americans voted for Trump, and it's unlikely his denial of climate change was a major factor in their decision - but nor was it enough to deter them.

Trump's administration's plans may turn out to be just another bump along the road towards an inevitable zero-carbon future. But any climate scientist will tell you that even the slightest delay on that journey is disastrous - and more than half of America just signalled it has no interest in going faster.

The Diplomatic Leverage of the US

Under previous administrations, the US was a major diplomatic force at the climate talks, brokering significant concessions from more recalcitrant states, including the world's largest polluter, China. It also set ambition, adopting carbon-cutting pledges and domestic policies like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that sent a powerful message to others that if the US saw a future beyond fossil fuels, everyone could.

The Economic Realities of Clean Technologies

Despite Trump's campaign slogan of "Trump Digs Coal," more coal-fired power plants closed under his last administration than under the climate-friendly one of Obama. Alternatives to fossil fuels, like wind and solar power, are increasing in popularity and decreasing in price, a trend forecast to continue. This is the case even more so among America's competitors like China, which saw 40% of its GDP last year come from shifting to clean technologies.

The Urgency of the Climate Crisis

International agreements have long lagged behind the urgency of the climate crisis, and the talks about to start in Baku were supposed to accelerate action. Instead, negotiators will arrive knowing that 72 million Americans voted for Trump, and it's unlikely his denial of climate change was a major factor in their decision - but nor was it enough to deter them.