The US withdrawal from the Paris climate accord for a second time under President Donald Trump will have a “huge impact” on efforts to curb global warming, the incoming head of the UN COP30 climate summit has warned.

André Corrêa do Lago, the experienced Brazilian diplomat and climate negotiator appointed this week, told the Financial Times that the exit of the US could also allow nations such as China, India and Brazil to take a bigger role in the world’s most important climate talks.

Trump fulfilled a pledge on his first day in office to once again pull the US out of what he described as an “unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord rip-off”. The US was the first country to withdraw during his first term as president in 2017, a move reversed by President Joe Biden in 2021.