UN Ambassador Nikki Haley: 'President Trump believes the climate is changing'

United States President Donald Trump's announcement on Thursday that he is withdrawing the U.S. from the landmark global Paris Climate Agreement failed to fluster Vladimir Putin. Trump barely mentioned the global warming that the Paris Agreement aims to ameliorate, suggesting that he continues to think that climate change is, as he once put it, a "hoax".

Trump's decision prompted criticism from many U.S. business leaders, including clean-tech entrepreneur and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk and Robert Iger, chief executive of the Walt Disney company, who said they had resigned from the president's advisory council over the issue.

Bloomberg, a billionaire climate advocate, also met with French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday to tell him the American people meant to uphold the pact.

French President Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders have also expressed disappointment with President Trump's decision. Kerry said. "That's like OJ Simpson saying he's going to go find the real killer". Because if he did believe in it he wouldn't pull out of Paris.

The President's decision was immediately challenged by the Democrats and business leaders. The letter was addressed jointly to the U.N. secretary general and the executive secretary to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Former Vice President Al Gore, a champion of environmental causes who tried personally to persuade Trump to keep the United States in the agreement, echoed Kerry.

"It was a reckless decision", Gore added of Trump's withdrawal from the pact.

"Now we can blame it all on him and American imperialism", Putin said, laughing, while addressing reporters in St Petersburg.

Trump formally announced his decision to leave the historic worldwide agreement Thursday after promising to take the action during last year's campaign.

The withdrawal would leave the USA more or less alone internationally, with just Syria and Nicaragua also not party to the agreement.

Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, made the Sunday talk show rounds to defend the White House decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement.

He had put the USA in league with two other nations -Syria and Nicaragua - who have not signed onto the deal agreed by over 190 other nations.