Trump will not harm Paris climate deal

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced confidence on Friday that Donald Trump will shed the strident rhetoric that propelled him to the White House and engage with the world to confront global crises like climate change.

Ban told AFP in an interview that he hopes to meet with the US president-elect in the coming weeks to explain how the United Nations expects the United States to "continue to work for humanity."

"This is what he said during the campaign period, on the campaign trail," Ban said in the interview. "Now, post-election, when he creates his transition team with experts and people with vision and expertise, I am sure that the United States will continue to play a leading role," he said.

During his campaign, Trump described global warming as a hoax invented by the Chinese, vowing to renege on US pledges to cut down greenhouse gas emissions.

Ban argued that there was a strong consensus in the United States and across the world on the need to address global warming, suggesting Trump would be recklessly out-of-sync if he scrapped the deal.

"Now business communities are fully on board. Civil society members are fully on board. How can one change all this course? It's a huge trend," he said.

"It will create serious problems if anybody wants to undo it, or unravel all this process."