US Withdrawal From Paris Climate Deal to Weaken Agreement - Czech PM

The decision of the United States to pull out of the Paris agreement on climate change will significantly reduce the effectiveness of the accord, but will not put an end to it, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said Friday.

PRAGUE (Sputnik) — On Thursday, US President Donald Trump announced that his country would end its membership in the Paris climate deal, adding that Washington would start renegotiation of the accord in order for it to be more beneficial to the United States.

"The mistaken decision of Trump will significantly weaken the Paris deal, but will not destroy it. It is bad that the United States isolate itself in the issues that have importance for the whole planet," Sobotka said on its Twitter account.

The Paris climate deal was signed in 2015. The agreement aims at keeping the increase in average global temperature at below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Being one of the most developed industrial countries in the world, the United States is one of the largest global producers of carbon emissions, and its efforts to control emissions are important for global climate efforts.