France president Francois Hollande warned Donald Trump on Saturday that US commitments to reducing climate change and global warming are "irreversible".

Anxiety over the new administration’s stance on climate change was heightened with his appointment of Myron Ebell as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s transition team.

Mr Ebell is a denier of climate change, currently works at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank.

US president-elect Trump has previously claimed climate change is a "hoax" and promised to cancel the hard-won Paris climate agreement aimed at pegging global warming at 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial age levels.