Syria to join Paris climate deal, leaving the US as the only country opposing the pact

Syria said on Tuesday that it intends to join the 2015 Paris agreement for slowing climate change, isolating the United States as the only country opposed to the pact.

Syria, racked by civil war, and Nicaragua were the only two nations outside the 195-nation pact when it was agreed in 2015. Nicaragua’s left-wing government, which originally denounced the plan as too weak, signed up last month.

“I would like to affirm the Syrian Arab Republic’s commitment to the Paris climate change accord,” deputy Environment Minister Wadah Katmawi told a meeting of almost 200 nations at the November 6-17 climate talks in Bonn, Germany.

Membership for Syria under President Bashar al-Assad would isolate the United States, the world’s biggest economy and second largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China, as the only nation opposed to the accord.

US President Donald Trump, who has expressed doubts that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are the prime cause of global warming, announced in June that he intended to pull out and instead promote US coal and oil industries.