MARRAKECH, Morocco — Negotiators from nearly 200 countries ended two weeks of talks Saturday pledging to press on with the fight against climate change – with or without the help of the next U.S. president.

The election of Donald Trump, who has called global warming a “hoax” and has threatened to cancel U.S. participation in an international climate deal, cast a pall over the conference in Marrakech.

The Obama administration had a a major role in negotiating the deal, forging alliances with China and other big polluters that helped bring decades of contentious discussions to a successful conclusion in Paris last year. Few at the Marrakech meeting wanted to consider what the agreement might look like without U.S. involvement.

Thursday, participants issued a call to action, saying, “Our climate is warming at an alarming and unprecedented rate and we have an urgent duty to respond.”

Without mentioning Trump by name, the declaration reaffirmed the need to reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and called for “the highest political commitment to combat climate change.”

The Paris agreement aims to limit the global temperature rise in this century to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times, and as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible. Those are the thresholds at which scientists believe many of the most damaging effects of climate change can be averted.

But the agreement does not contain binding emissions targets, relying on governments to set their own goals. Even if the U.S. and other countries were to fulfill the commitments made so far, the consensus among scientists is that it would not be enough to achieve the deal’s temperature goals.

Delegates in Marrakech appealed to Trump to work with the rest of the world to step up the fight against global warming.

Fiji’s prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, drew applause Friday when he reiterated an invitation he made to Trump to visit his South Pacific nation and see for himself the effects of rising sea levels and Cyclone Winston.

POOR NATIONS HAVE MUCH TO LOSE

Trump’s assertions during the campaign that he would cut off U.S. funding for climate programs alarmed many of the world’s poorer countries, which will need the help of wealthy nations to cope with retreating shorelines, prolonged droughts and extreme floods and storms.

Developed countries agreed in Paris to commit at least $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer nations cope with climate change and move them to cleaner energy sources. But countries that are already suffering the effects of climate change say they will need more help than that, and sooner.

“There’s nervousness in these halls about climate finance,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The Obama administration pledged to contribute $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, but it has delivered only a first installment of $500 million.

Moroccan Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar said “turning billions into trillions will be indispensable.” The “message to the new American president is simply to say, ‘We count on your pragmatism and your spirit of commitment, he said.'”

U.S. representatives in Marrakech sought to reassure counterparts that the success of the Paris agreement does not depend on the policies of any single administration. Obama’s envoy on climate change, Jonathan Pershing, noted the growing momentum around the world to confront the problem, not only from governments, but also from the private sector.

LEADERS FORGE AHEAD

“We are confident this movement will continue, not only because the impacts are more and more damaging, and clearer and clearer, but because the clean energy transition presents opportunities for economic growth, for job creation and for sustaining healthier and more prosperous communities,” he said Thursday.

Although the U.S. elections clouded much of the talks, by the end of the week participants spoke of a renewed resolve among nations to work out the details of how the Paris deal will be implemented and procedures to measure, report and assess the progress on their emissions goals.

“We all need to do more, of course,” United Nations climate chief Patricia Espinosa said in her concluding remarks. “But we are moving in the right direction, and that is reason to be optimistic.”