US informs UN its intention to withdraw from Paris deal

The formal notification to the UN comes two months after President Donald Trump announced his intention to leave the accord, fulfilling a longtime campaign promise and rejecting appeals from other world leaders to stay in the deal.

But according to the terms of the pact, the US cannot fully withdraw until November 4, 2020, which would be a day after the next presidential election is held in the US. This means the next US president can still rejoin

the agreement.

Reacting to the US' notification, UN chief Antonio Guterres urged it to re-engage with the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

The Paris climate deal aims to prevent the Earth from heating up by 2 degrees Celsius since the start of the industrial age. The US is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China.

Trump drew international condemnation in June when he first announced the US intention to withdraw. He said the deal "punished" the US and would cost millions of American jobs.

The State Department on Friday said that the US submitted a communication to the UN, in its capacity as a depositary for the Paris agreement, regarding the US intent to withdraw from it as soon as it is eligible to do so.

As the president indicated in his June 1 announcement and subsequently, he is open to re-engaging with the agreement if the US can identify terms that are more favourable to it, its businesses, its workers, its people, and its taxpayers, it said in

a statement.

The US supports a balanced approach to climate policy that lowers emissions while promoting economic growth and ensuring energy security, it said.

"We will continue to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions through innovation and technology breakthroughs, and work with other countries to help them access and use fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently and deploy renewable and other clean energy sources, given the importance of energy access and security in many nationally determined contributions," the state

department said.