By Megan Darby in Marrakech

US Republicans are expected to axe billions of dollars in climate finance when they take the White House and Congress in January.

Funds to help poor countries adapt to the impacts of global warming and develop sustainably will be redirected to domestic priorities.

“We are going to cancel billions in payments to the UN climate change programmes and use the money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure,” said President-elect Donald Trump in his 22 October Gettysburg address.1

With a Republican majority in the Senate and House of Representatives, there appears to be little standing in his way.

“That brings a fear to African countries,” Akabiwa Nyambe, a Zambian official, told Climate Home at a side meeting of COP22 climate talks in Marrakech. “We have been looking forward to the US bringing a lot of funding into projects… It drops our faces.”