US allies determined to sidestep Trump on climate

France said on Monday that the global fight against climate change was irreversible and could even be accelerated, despite Donald Trump's decision to pull the United States out of the Paris accord on carbon emissions.

Joining other G7 environment chiefs at talks in Italy, French minister Nicolas Hulot said US allies were determined not to let Trump's controversial climate stance "poison" cooperation on other ecological issues, and said the world could work around the US position, even though it is a damaging one.

"The only legal framework for climate negotiations is the accord and objectives fixed in Paris and there is no doubt that they are irreversible," said Hulot, a former TV star and a longstanding environmental campaigner who was persuaded to enter government by new French President Emmanuel Macron.

Hulot said US commitments on other environmental issues, notably cleaning up the world's plastic-choked oceans, were not in doubt, and the commitment of industry players to green technologies and renewable energy would not be affected by Trump's position.

While acknowledging that Trump's ending of US financing for developing countries affected by climate change was an important setback, he said France and other countries were looking at ways of compensating through multilateral banks."We have to stay prudent and not fall into catastrophism.

The transition to a low-carbon economy is on the march and it has an irreversible dynamic, including in the United States," he said in comments that played on the name of Macron's "En Marche!" movement. "Now we want to try and accelerate rather than hit the brakes," Hulot added, promising to step up carbon-curbing overhauls at a national and European level.