"Nations, businesses and Washington's top diplomat urged president-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday not to withdraw the US from the climate-rescue Paris Agreement and its commitments to preserve Earth for future generations.

US Secretary of State John Kerry underlined the perils that await the world if leaders drag their feet on cutting planet-warming greenhouse gases, while poor nations and small-island states highlighted their own vulnerability to the predicted climate catastrophe.

"At some point even the strongest sceptic has to acknowledge that something disturbing is happening," Kerry said at a UN climate conference in Marrakesh, just a week after Trump's election to the White House."

Mariëtte Le Roux reports for Agence France-Presse November 16, 2016. [2]