'We're getting out' from Paris climate deal: Donald Trump

President Donald Trump has announced his decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, arguing that the 2015 agreement was detrimental to the US economy.

"In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord, but being negotiations to reenter, either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction under terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers , its people , its taxpayers," Trump said from the White House Rose Garden. "We're getting out."

He announced this decision from the same place where former US President Barack Obama hailed the agreement as "a turning point for our planet."

With this announcement, President Trump fulfills his campaign promises while seriously dampening global efforts to curb global warming.

The decision amounts to a rebuttal of the worldwide effort to pressure Trump to remain a part of the agreement. The 197-member climate agreement requires every country to establish ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gasses. But those targets are largely voluntary, and Trump has already made clear that he views environmental regulations as an obstacle to his goal of creating jobs and ensuring energy independence.

Trump stated "US will cease all implementation of the non-binding draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. Thus ending implementation of national contribution from immediate effect and the Green climate fund which is costing the US.

It is pertinent to mention that ceasing U.S. payments to the fund were part of his budget released last month."

Former US President Barack Obama lamented over the decision saying the deal was meant to "protect the world we leave to our children."

Accusing Trump for "rejecting the future" by pulling out of the Paris climate deal, the former president warned that the US would risk missing out on the economic benefits of being a part of the Paris agreement, CNN reported.

Obama's office released the statement in the middle of Trump's Rose Garden announcement that the US would be withdrawing from the landmark climate pact.

"The nations that remain in the Paris Agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created," read the statement.

Adding, "This Administration joins a small handful of nations that reject the future."

Obama said the US "should be at the front of the pack" when it came to lowering emissions and developing green technology.

"For the nations that committed themselves to that future, the Paris Agreement opened the floodgates for businesses, scientists, and engineers to unleash high-tech, low-carbon investment and innovation on an unprecedented scale," he said.

While Italy, France and Germany have issued collective statement regretting President Donald Trump 's decision of United States quitting from the Paris climate accord and dismissed his suggestion that the global pact could be renegotiated.

- - ANI