US: 'Syria more concerned with CO2 than sarin'

Syria more concerned with CO2 than sarin, mocks US over Paris climate deal

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert mocked Syria for joining the Paris Agreement on climate change, citing the regime's brutal civil war tactics of gassing its own people.

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08 Nov, 2017

The US has deflected criticism over its withdrawal from the Paris agreement [Getty]

The United States mocked Syria's arrival in the Paris Agreement on climate change on Tuesday, side-stepping the charge that it has isolated itself by being the world's sole hold-out.

Syria had earlier told UN climate talks in Bonn that it will become the 197th country to join the accord, making US President Donald Trump's government the only one planning to pull out.

But State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert fiercely dismissed suggestions that this means that Trump's "America First" policy has in practice meant "America Alone".

"I find it ironic that the government of Syria, OK, would say that it wants to be involved, and that it cares so much about climate and things like CO2 gas," she told reporters.

"If the government of Syria cared so much about what was put in the air, then it wouldn't be gassing its own people," she said, referring to the Damascus regime's brutal civil war tactics.

Late last month, the UN formally held the Syrian regime Bashar al-Assad responsible for a sarin gas massacre in April this year.

More than 80 people were killed on April 4 when sarin gas projectiles were fired into Khan Sheikhoun, an opposition-held town in the Idlib province of northwestern Syria.

In all, UN investigators said they had documented 33 chemical weapons attacks to date, the majority at the hands of Assad's regime.

Signed in the French capital in December 2015, the Paris treaty entered into force on November 4, 2016, and aims to respond to the global climate change threat by mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.