UN climate chief Simon Stiell has said that the US withdrawal from UNFCCC is a “step back” from climate cooperation and will hurt US economy.

“While all other nations are stepping forward together, this latest step back from global leadership, climate cooperation and science can only harm the US economy, jobs and living standards, as wildfires, floods, mega-storms and droughts get rapidly worse. It is a colossal own goal which will leave the US less secure and less prosperous,” Stiell said in a statement.

Stiell predicted that the actions would increase energy, food, transport and insurance costs for American households and businesses, and create more future global conflicts, regional instability and forced migration as oil, coal and gas volatility increases.

In a plea, the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change said that the door remained wide open for the US to rejoin in the future, as it has in the past with the Paris Agreement.

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