Emmanuel Macron highlights progress made in fighting global warming despite Trump's pulling out of Paris climate accord
ADVERTISEMENTFrench President Emmanuel Macron is to urge wealthy countries to accelerate efforts to combat global warming at today's "One planet" summit.
At a dinner hosted by UN special climate envoy Michael Bloomberg on the eve of the meeting Macron said things were progressing despite President Trump's pulling out from the Paris climate accord.
"After his decision, we accelerated the ratifications, we had more and more countries joining the club and ratifying the Paris agreement, it was a sort of big shock for a lot of people saying "Wow! it's the very first country to decide to leave the club. Now it is at risk."
Some 50 world leaders are due to attend the summit in Paris along with tech entrepreneurs and climate scientists. It is taking place on the two-year anniversary of the Paris Climate accord. Carrying "Make Our Planet Great Again" cards which apes Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan, Macron is increasing his efforts to counter Trump on the climate change issue.
Part of that effort is an initiative by Macron to award multi-million-euro grants to numerous American and other climate scientists to get them to work in France.
More than 5,000 people from about 100 countries have expressed interest in the grants, the French government said, with the majority coming from the US. Their research focuses on pollution, hurricanes and clouds.