French President Emmanuel Macron will stress the importance of international action on climate change at talks Saturday with his right-wing Argentine counterpart Javier Milei who pulled his country out of the COP29 climate talks.
Argentina's climate skeptic president, a fervent admirer of Donald Trump, caused fears for the future of the 2015 Paris accord on global warming this week after pulling his country from a climate change conference underway in Azerbaijan.
The snub came a day before Milei met Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort, the first foreign leader to visit the Republican since his reelection which Milei hailed as "the greatest political comeback in history."
Argentina's rejection of the talks sparked fears it could walk away from the landmark 2015 Paris deal on slashing emissions, as Trump did during his first presidential term.
Macron, a passionate defender of multilateralism, will attempt to convince Milei to continue to back "the international consensus" on global issues, including climate change, Macron's aides said.
The French centrist will have dinner with Milei after his arrival in Buenos Aires ahead of formal talks on Sunday.
The two will then travel separately to the G20 summit held on Monday and Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro.
"This will be a test for Macron and his political clout," Oscar Soria, a leading Argentine climate activist, told AFP.
"If he can't convince Milei to stay in the Paris Agreement, then that would show he's not having the same halo as he used to have in Latin America," Soria said, adding he feared a "chain" of withdrawals by South American countries from the Paris deal if Argentina walked away.
Macron tried but failed to use his persuasive powers to keep Trump in the Paris accord in 2017 and also clashed with Brazilian former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro over rampant deforestation in the Amazon during his 2019-2023 rule.
But since losing his relative majority in the French parliament in July elections his clout has been significantly diminished both at home and abroad.
He is one of the few foreign leaders to visit Milei since the Argentine's election last year on promise to slash public spending, which has earned him the admiration of both Trump and his billionaire consigliere Elon Musk.
Macron's advisors said he will also use the visit to explain France's dogged resistance to a trade pact between the European Union and four South American countries, including Brazil and Argentina.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is pushing to get the deal, which has been 25 years in the making, over the line by the end of the year, with or without France.
Farmers in France and a number of other European countries, however, fear the deal will see the EU flooded with cheaper agricultural goods, including Brazilian and Argentine beef.
After his visits to Argentina and the G20 Macron will visit Chile.
