The United States has officially informed the United Nations that it will pull out of the 2015 Paris climate deal two months after President Donald Trump announced his decision to do so.
The announcement came in a document issued Friday by the US State Department, which also added that Washington would still take part in future climate change talks.
The Trump administration had notified the UN of its "intent to withdraw from the Paris Agreement," said the statement, but noted that the country will keep participating “in international climate change negotiations and meetings.”
The future engagement aims to “protect US interests and ensure all future policy options remain open to the administration,” the statement said, adding the participation includes constant negotiations pertaining to “guidance for implementing the Paris Agreement."
"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."
The statement, however, does not mean the US formally starts getting out of the agreement, a process that will take at least until 2020.
In June, Trump said that the deal was unfair to American workers and said it stifled production and imposed burdens on the country.
He has taken a hard stance on climate change; at times calling it a hoax by China. During the election campaign, he vowed to "cancel" the Paris agreement within 100 days of becoming president on January 20 in order to bolster US oil and coal giant, which bankrolled his campaign.
The Paris Agreement went into effect on November 4, 2016 and has been signed by 197 countries, of which 135 have now formally ratified it, which represent more than 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
