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Billionaire former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg says he will write a $US4.5 million ($5.9 million) cheque to cover the United States' financial commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement for this year.
President Donald Trump last year pulled the US out of the pact, making the country the only one opposed to it.
In a CBS interview, Mr Bloomberg said he hoped Mr Trump would have changed his mind by next year.
Mr Bloomberg would continue to provide money for the pact if the United States did not re-join the agreement, according to a news release from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charity he founded.
"The US pledged to work with the rest of the world to fight climate change under the Paris Agreement, and that includes providing our fair share of the funding to help countries reach their goals," said a statement from Mr Bloomberg, who is also the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Climate Action.
"Our foundation will uphold our promise to cover any cuts to UN climate funding by the Federal Government — and the American people will uphold our end of the Paris Agreement, with or without Washington."
Mr Bloomberg's contribution provides the UN Climate Change Secretariat with 60 per cent of the anticipated US Government support this year.
Mr Trump staunchly opposes the agreement and his administration has rolled back a number of environmental regulations.
Although Mr Trump officially told the UN that the US intended to withdraw from the climate agreement last year, the earliest date the US can completely withdraw is November 2020, the time of the next US presidential election and four years after the agreement came into effect.
The Paris agreement came into force on November 4, 2016 and aims to prevent the Earth from heating up by 2 degrees Celsius since the start of the industrial age.
Under the agreement, countries set their own national plans for cutting climate emissions.
Reuters/ABC
Topics: climate-change, government-and-politics, donald-trump, community-and-society, world-politics, environment, united-states
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