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Soon it will be just the U.S. and Syria rejecting the Paris accord

Donald Trump’s June decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord put the U.S. in a very exclusive club – only Syria and Nicaragua had initially refused to join the historic deal.

That stance became even more isolated Thursday when Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega announced his country will “soon” join the 2015 global pact of almost 200 nations.

Trump now stands alongside Bashar Assad, a man accused of killing his own people with chemical weapons, in refusing to fight global warming.

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Signatories of the landmark accord pledged to limit warming to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. currently remains in the pact, but paperwork has been filed with the United Nations to pull out within four years.

America’s position is extraordinary given the reasons Nicaragua and Syria refused to join.

Nicaragua – which draws more than half its energy from renewables – refused to sign because the agreement did not go far enough, and required more sacrifice from wealthy nations. Ortega said Monday the rethink was driven by a concern for countries vulnerable to natural disasters.

Syria hasn’t signed as it has been ravaged by years of civil war.

Trump is the only world leader not to acknowledge that climate change is real, according to a Sierra Club survey last year. In a 2012 tweet, Trump called climate change a hoax “created” by the Chinese.

The Paris accord is intended as a first step in tackling climate change – setting the stage for more ambitious global targets in the future. The current greenhouse-gas reduction targets for each country outlined in the agreement will not be enough to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.