President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Centre, in Paris. | AP Obama: I'm confident a Democrat will succeed me

Other countries can be confident that the United States will uphold any commitments stemming from the Paris-based climate talks even after he has left office, President Barack Obama declared Tuesday.

For one main reason: “Just with respect to my successor, let me first of all say that I’m anticipating a Democrat succeeding me," Obama smirked, speaking to reporters at a news conference prior to his departure to Washington.


"I’m confident in the wisdom of the American people on that front," Obama said. "But even if somebody from a different party succeeded me, one of the things that you find is when you’re in this job, you think about it differently than when you’re just running for the job."

When one becomes president, Obama continued, it becomes necessary not to just play to "a narrow constituency back home" but realize that "you now are in fact at the center of what happens around the world, and that your credibility and America’s ability to influence events depends on taking seriously what other countries care about."

"Now the fact of the matter is, there’s a reason why you have the largest gathering of world leaders probably in human history here in Paris. Everybody else is taking climate change really seriously. They think it’s a really big problem," the president said. "It spans political parties. I mean, you travel around Europe and you talk to leaders of governments and the opposition, and they are arguing about a whole bunch of things. One thing they’re not arguing about is whether the science of climate change is real and whether or not we’re going to have to do something about it."

"So whoever is the next president of the United States, if they come in and they suggest somehow that that global consensus, not just 99.5 percent of scientists and experts but 99 percent of world leaders think this is really important, I think the president of the United States is going to need to think this is really important. And that’s why it’s important for us to not project what’s being said on a campaign trail but to do what’s right and to make that case," Obama said, referencing recent public polling. "The good news is the politics inside the United States is changing as well. Sometimes it may be hard for Republicans to support something that I’m doing, but that’s more a matter of games Washington plays, and that’s why I think people should be confident that we’ll meet our commitments on this."