A U.S.-based global alliance to speed up efforts to tackle climate change was set to be launched Wednesday.

Formalized two days after the United States confirmed its plans to quit the landmark Paris climate agreement of 2015, the initiative aims to create a forum for sharing knowledge and technology among governments, businesses and community leaders.

Those joining the New York launch and supporting Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030 (P4G) include China, Indonesia and C40, a global network of more than 90 large cities, representing a quarter of the global economy, taking action to address climate change. Twelve of the cities are in the U.S.

“We have all realized that the [U.S.] president is not, after all, almighty. And we see a long list of states, like California and Texas,  wanting to do something different on the climate issue,” Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told the Berlingske newspaper. Rasmussen’s nation is serving as the inaugural host country of the initiative.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser told a U.N. meeting on Monday that he stood by his intention to abandon the Paris pact unless there was a renegotiation more favorable to the United States, a step for which other countries have little appetite.

P4G will have its international base in Washington beginning in  January and hold its first summit in Copenhagen next November.
…