Donald Trump is looking for a fast way to escape a global agreement to limit climate change, a source on his transition team has said.

The Paris Agreement won enough international backing to enter into force on 4 November, and since Mr Trump's remarkable victory more world leaders have backed the plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

But Mr Trump, who once called climate change a “hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese “in order to make US manufacturing non competitive,” has pledged to quit the agreement.

Countries ranging from China to small island states reaffirmed support for the 2015 accord, at 200-nation climate talks running until 18 November in Marrakesh, Morocco.

But a source who is part of the team helping Mr Trump smoothly assume presidency, told Reuters he is considering ways to bypass a theoretical four-year procedure for leaving the accord.

“It was reckless for the Paris agreement to enter into force before the election” on Tuesday, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Mr Trump could send a letter withdrawing from a 1992 Convention that is the parent treaty of the Paris Agreement, voiding US involvement in both in a year's time, or issue a presidential order simply deleting the US signature from the Paris accord, the source said.

Many nations have expressed hopes the United States will stay. Host Morocco said the agreement that seeks to phase out greenhouse gases in the second half of the century was strong enough to survive a pullout.

“If one party decides to withdraw that it doesn't call the agreement into question,” Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar told a news conference.

The agreement was reached by almost 200 nations in December and, as of Saturday, has been formally ratified by 109 representing 76 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, including the United States with 18 per cent.

The accord seeks to limit rising temperatures that have been linked to increasing economic damage from desertification, extinctions of animals and plants, heat waves, floods and rising sea levels.

Climate change naysayers Show all 12 1 /12 Climate change naysayers Climate change naysayers Getty Images Climate change naysayers British writer Christopher Brooker came in for a lot of criticism for an article he wrote in The Telegraph last year entitled "Facts melted by 'global warming'". In it he remarked: 'The warmists are so locked into their general narrative that the plummeting temperatures and abnormal snowfalls of the past two winters have thrown their army of media groupies into quite a tizzy. The BBC did at least deign last week to notice the worst snowstorm to hit Las Vegas for 30 years, but without mentioning the freak snow and ice storms affecting many other parts of the US, as far south as New Orleans. ' Climate change naysayers British National Party leader Nick Griffin denounced climate change activists as 'cranks' and compared the fear of global warming to an 'Orwellian consensus' and 'new theology' that is 'being used to impose an anti-human utopia as deadly as anything conceived by Stalin or Mao' in a speech to the European Parliament in late November. Getty Images Climate change naysayers Tory MEP Roger Helmer accused the Church of England of 'preaching climate change' last month saying that the church had 'abandoned religious faith entirely and taken up the new religion of climate alarmism.' He wrote that 'when the world is cooling and when more and more scientists around the world are breaking cover to challenge the theory of man-made global warming perhaps world religions should have more faith in God, and less in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.' Getty Images Climate change naysayers Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, USA caused uproar in 2003 when he called the threat of global warming the 'greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people'. Two years later he reaffirmed this position in an address to the Senate by saying that anthropogenic global warming is not a threat and that 'We are also in the midst of a natural warming trend that began about 1850, as we emerged from a 400 year cold spell known as the Little Ice Age.' Getty Images Climate change naysayers President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus caused controversy in 2007 when he reportedly declared: 'Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so.' Klaus is also reported to have called the UN Climate Change Conference in September 2009 'undignified' and 'propagandist'. Getty Images Climate change naysayers British politician and business man Christopher Monckton,3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley has expressed his scepticism about the anthropogenic causes of climate change in a number of newspaper articles and books, including Apocalypse? No!. Climate change naysayers Professor Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, has authored several books about climate change. Although he professes not to contest the scientific principles behind global warming, in his view the effects will be by no means catastrophic and could even be beneficial. Climate change naysayers Australian geologist Professor Ian Plimer has characterised the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as 'related to environmental activism, politics and opportunism and unrelated to science.' His bestselling book Heaven and Earth claims that studies about climate change focus too heavily on carbon dioxide and don't consider other factors such as solar variation. Megan Lewis / Reuters Climate change naysayers Former astronaut and geologist Harrison Schmitt remarked on Fox News earlier this year: 'I don't think the human effect [of climate change] is significant compared to the natural effect.' He also gave an address at a conference discussing climate change denial hosted by the Heartland Institute. Getty Images Climate change naysayers Fred Singer, Professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia has been quoted as saying: 'The greenhouse effect is real. However, the effect is minute, insignificant, and very difficult to detect...It's not automatically true that warming is bad, I happen to believe that warming is good, and so do many economists.' Climate change naysayers Northern Irish minister of the environment Sammy Wilson has reportedly stated that climate change is a 'myth based on dodgy science' and compared it to a hysterical form of religion. He came under fire in February this year for stopping climate change advertisements from being broadcast on TV, calling them 'insidious propaganda'.

Current US secretary of state John Kerry said on Sunday that he would continue his efforts to implement the Paris agreement until Barack Obama leaves office on 20 January.

“The evidence is mounting in ways that people in public life should not dare to avoid accepting as a mandate for action,” Mr Kerry said.

“Now the world’s scientific community has concluded that climate change is happening beyond any doubt. And the evidence is there for everybody to see."

UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa declined to comment on Mr Trump source's remarks to Reuters.

“The Paris Agreement carries an enormous amount of weight and credibility,” she told a news conference. She said the United Nations hoped for a strong and constructive relationship with Mr Trump.

The Trump source blamed U.S. President Barack Obama for joining up by an executive order, without getting approval from the Senate. “There wouldn't be this diplomatic fallout on the broader international agenda if Obama hadn't rushed the adoption,” he said.