Countries attending COP22 reaffirm commitment to Paris agreement

Delegates attending the UN climate meeting in Morocco on Thursday reiterated their commitment to the 2015 Paris agreement with a proclamation saying climate action is “irreversible”.

The two-week conference has been dominated by uncertainty of the future position of the United States following the surprise victory of Republican Donald Trump.

The Marrakech Proclamation as it has become known, calls for the “highest political commitment to combat climate change” while reaffirming the promise by rich countries to mobilize $100 billion annually by 2020 to help poor countries deal with climate change.

The proclamation is also being considered a message of solidarity against the threat by Donald Trump to pull the US out of the Paris accord.

Trump who has called climate change a hoax, has vowed to rip up the Paris deal, halt US taxpayer funding for UN global warming programmes and revive America’s coal industry.

But the US Secretary of State, John Kerry assured delegates at the COP22 summit of his country’s resolve to stick to its commitment to the Paris deal.

“No one should doubt the overwhelming majority of the citizens of the United States who know climate change is happening and who are determined to keep our commitments that were made in Paris,” Kerry told the gathering.

Policy Director at the US Climate Network, Tina Johnson also told reporters that: “No one country, no one man, no one person can control the outcome of the destiny that we all see as part of the writing on the wall that climate change is real, we need to act and we are going to do everything we can so I definitely think that the speeches over the past several days had that impact and effect on us as a civil society and over other countries as well.”

Delegates at the climate talks have however downplayed Trump’s remarks and adopted a wait-and-see approach to how he will approach the Paris deal once he officially takes office.