Donald Trump's toxic emissions on climate change will destroy humanity

The president-elect of the United States denies climate change. This is the reality we must now live with for at least the next four years, and as the initial shock of Trump's election wears off, people across the world are starting to come to terms with just what it will mean for the future of our planet. They are, rightly, concerned.

Trump has repeatedly rejected scientific evidence that average global temperatures are rising. He has claimed global warming is a "concept", "created by and for the Chinese". He has said he will back oil and coal while halting spending on tackling climate change, actions which would have a shattering effect on the poorest people in the world who will suffer the very worst effects of climate change.

As Trump was elected on 9 November, officials from countries across the world were gathered in Marrakech to discuss how we can stop the very thing he claims is not happening at all. At the moment the US is one of the countries to have ratified the Paris Agreement around which these talks revolve – but Trump has said he will pull American support.

Experts have been quick to point out that it would take years for Trump to achieve this, if he chose to, but this has done little to quiet the fears of those of us who care that we are not even currently on course to meet climate targets. Those of us who worry he will ignore the Agreement even if he doesn't withdraw. Those who know there is already no room for error, and that we do not have time to waste on ignorance.

Every day I cycle to work at City Hall in London. The air I breathe as I cycle around buses and cars is so toxic it kills more than 40,000 Britons a year. Our oceans are filling with waste, species are dying out, and as we continue to drill into the Earth to find fuel, people are still living in poverty, unable to heat their homes during the winter.

Without urgent action we will surpass the 1.5C average global temperature increase target of the Paris agreement within years, and we face a very real challenge to keep global warming below 2C. If Trump continues to deny the reality of climate change it will not only affect America – it will harm us all.

And so, we have work to do. Now, more than ever, we must unite and organise. The outpouring of fear at what a President Trump means for the fight against climate change is testament to the importance of that very fight. The shared concern we have for our planet, our communal home, is a bond that Trump has not broken and will not break.

The Paris Agreement is one of the best examples of just what we can achieve when we work together. Across the world clean industries are creating more jobs than any other sector, while renewable energy is exceeding coal as a global power source. We should look to these things, not the president of America, when we wonder where the hope for the future of our planet is.

Caroline Russell is Green Party London Assembly Member.