WORLD leaders, investment funds and energy magnates have promised to devote new money and technology to slow global warming at a summit that France’s President Emmanuel Macron hopes will rev up the Paris climate accord US president Donald Trump has rejected.

Mr Trump was not invited to the event but his name was everywhere.

One by one, top world diplomats, former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, business leaders such as Michael Bloomberg and even former US secretary of state John Kerry insisted the world will shift to cleaner fuels and reduce emissions regardless of whether the Trump administration pitches in or not.

Central to the summit was finding ways to counter Mr Trump’s main argument: that the 2015 Paris accord on reducing global emissions would hurt US business.

Mr Macron, a 39-year-old former investment banker who was using the summit to seize the global limelight, argues the big businesses and successful economies of the future will be making and using renewable energy instead of pumping oil.

He announced a dozen international projects that will inject hundreds of millions of dollars in efforts to curb climate change.

The projects include a programme for eight US states to develop electric vehicles, an investment fund for the hurricane-hit Caribbean and money from Bill Gates’ foundation to help farmers adapt to climate change.

They also aim to speed up the end of the combustion engine as part of the Paris accord’s goals to reduce the emissions that contribute to global warming.

Mr Macron hosted 164 world leaders, government members, business leaders and prominent figures involved in fighting global warming at the Elysee presidential palace.

More than 50 heads of state and government attended the lunch organised by the French presidency for a climate summit aimed at finding billions of dollars of financing to help poor countries and industries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

They were welcomed in the Elysee courtyard by Mr Macron, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim and the UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, co-organisers if the summit.

Mr Gates and Elon Musk are among the prominent figures at the summit.

Activists kept up pressure with a protest in the shadow of the domed Pantheon monument on Paris’ Left Bank, calling for an end to all investment in oil, gas and resource mining.

That was not far from the message which opened the summit.

Top officials agreed the global financial system isn’t shifting fast enough away from carbon emissions and toward energy and business projects that don’t aggravate climate change.

“Financial pledges need to flow faster through more streamlined system and make a difference on the ground,” said Fiji’s prime minister Frank Bainimarama, whose island nation is among those on the front lines of the rising sea levels and extreme storms worsened by human-made emissions.

“We are all in the same canoe,” rich countries and poor, he said.

Japanese foreign minister Taro Kono described ways Japan is investing in climate monitoring technology and hydrogen energy but said “we have to do more and better”.

As the day progressed, announcements started rolling in.

A group of 225 investment funds managing more than 26 trillion US dollars in assets promised to pressure companies to curb their greenhouse gas emissions and to disclose climate-related financial information. The group, which includes the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest US public pension fund, says it will focus on 100 of the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has also announced millions of pounds of UK funding to help those worst affected.

Mrs May said £140 million of new funding to help the world’s poorest communities build resilience to extreme weather events caused by global warming. And she said the UK will give an extra £15m to help Caribbean island state Dominica recover from the devastation of Hurricane Maria in September, as well as £87m for poor communities fighting against illegal logging.

Speaking ahead of her visit to Paris, Mrs May said: “Tackling climate change and mitigating its effects for the world’s poorest are among the most critical challenges we face. That is why I am joining other world leaders for the One Planet Summit and committing to stand firmly with those on the front line of extreme weather and rising sea levels.”

Financial institutions used the meeting to highlight the need to ensure that their investments don’t suffer from, or contribute to, the effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels and more extreme weather.

Mr Macron also hosted leading world philanthropists yesterday morning to encourage more climate-related investment.

Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor, says environmentalists owe Mr Trump a debt of “gratitude” for acting as a “rallying cry” for action on climate change.

Mr Bloomberg said the private sector coalition called America’s Pledge, that promises to honour goals set in 2015, “now represents half of the US economy”.

Former US Secretary of State, John Kerry, told that many Americans remain “absolutely committed” to the Paris accord.

He said 38 states have legislation pushing renewable energy and 90 major American cities support the Paris accord fighting global warming.