UN’s Ban Ki-moon expresses hopes that the US president-elect will drop plans to quit a global accord aimed at weaning the world off fossil fuels

The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, said on Tuesday that action on climate change has become “unstoppable“, and he expressed hopes that US president-elect, Donald Trump, would drop plans to quit a global accord aimed at weaning the world off fossil fuels.

At a meeting of almost 200 nations in Morocco to work out ways to implement the 2015 Paris agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, Ban said US companies, states and cities were all pushing to limit global warming.

What is the Paris agreement? It's a climate change accord agreed by nearly 200 countries in December 2015, which came into force on 4 November 2016. The agreement commits world leaders to keeping global warming below 2C, seen as the threshold for safety by scientists, and pursuing a tougher target of 1.5C. The carbon emission curbs put forward by countries under Paris are not legally-binding but the framework of the accord, which includes a mechanism for periodically cranking those pledges up, is binding. The agreement also has a long-term goal for net zero emissions which would effectively phase out fossil fuels.





“What was once unthinkable has become unstoppable,” he told a news conference of the Paris agreement, agreed by governments last year, ratified in record time and formally adopted by more than 100 nations including the United States.

The accord, aiming to phase out net greenhouse gas emissions this century, was a breakthrough after more than two decades of negotiations, driven by increased scientific certainty that man-made emissions drive heat waves, floods and rising sea levels.

Ban said that he hoped that Republican Trump, elected last Tuesday, would drop his view that man-made climate change is a hoax and his pledge to withdraw from the Paris agreement.

“I am sure he will make a quick, wise decision,” Ban said, saying that climate change was having severe impacts from the Arctic to Antarctica. He noted that 2016 is on track to be the warmest year since records began in the 19th century.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Civil society and youth groups call for urgent climate action as they demonstrate outside the UN climate talks in Marrakech. Photograph: Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images

“I hope he will really hear and understand the severity and urgency of addressing climate change. As president of the United States I hope he understands this, listens and evaluates his campaign remarks,” he said.

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Ban said that companies including General Mills and Kellogg, states such as California and cities such as Washington, Nashville and Las Vegas were working to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

He said that Trump, as a “very successful business person“, would understand that market forces were already acting to push the world economy towards cleaner energies, away from fossil fuels.

Ban, who will step down at the end of the year after a decade in charge of the United Nations, has made action on climate change a core issue of his time in office.