Syria has pledged to sign up to the Paris accord on climate change, leaving the United States the only country opposed to the pact.
The Arab state, in the midst of a bloody six-year-war, on Tuesday became the final functioning state to commit to try to lower temperature rises.
“I would like to affirm the Syrian Arab Republic’s commitment to the Paris climate change accord,” Wadah Katmawi, deputy Environment Minister, said on the second day of climate talks in Bonn, Germany.
Nicaragua had been the only other country outside the 195-nation agreement, which it criticised as “too weak”, until it signed up last month.
The US, the world’s largest economy and second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, is the only government to have initiated withdrawal proceedings from the historic pact in its 23-year history.
Overall, the Paris agreement seeks to limit a global rise in temperatures to “well below” two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, ideally 1.5.
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.
“The United States is withdrawing unless we can re-enter on terms that are more favorable to our country,” Lindsay Walters, White House spokeswoman, said at the time.
David Waskow, of the World Resources Institute think-tank, noted that Mr Trump’s climate views had previously isolated him from other leading economies in the Group of Seven and the Group of 20.
“Now he’ll be isolated from all nations,” he said.
Mr Trump has said he will pull out of the Paris agreement unless Washington can secure more favourable terms for American businesses and taxpayers.
But he has been vague about what that means, especially since the pact gives all nations power to set their own goals.
