Global leaders ask Trump to stay in Paris agreement

Brussels, Thursday

European Council President Donald Tusk made a personal appeal today to US President Donald Trump not to pull Washington out of the Paris climate agreement.

Tusk warned Trump on Twitter against such a move as he prepared to host an EU-China summit Friday designed to fill the void on climate if the US withdraws from the landmark 2015 pact.

“@realDonaldTrump please don’t change the (political) climate for the worse,” Tusk said after Trump tweeted he would make his final decision Thursday.

Tusk will join Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the executive European Commission, in meeting Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang at the summit on Friday.

Speaking on a visit to Germany, Premier Li Keqiang said China will honour its commitments on climate change. He said China was counting on other countries to follow its example, Li said.

“China will continue to implement the promises made in the Paris accord. But of course we also hope to do this with the co-operation of others,” Li said.

Russia also said it would stick to its climate commitments, but said the Paris agreement would be affected by a US pullout. “It goes without saying that the effectiveness of this convention is likely to be reduced without its key participants,” a Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said he was “anxious” at the prospect of a US withdrawal but said he believed Trump was “genuinely thinking about the issue”. Some of the biggest gains in tackling carbon emissions in the US had been made at state level rather than federal level, he added. -AFP/BBC

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